Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do?

[mark_lundquist@my-deja.com]

In article <93c0e9$4u6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <937kc7$ssq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > Through the history of Ada we have had people saying
> > "If only we did X, then Ada would be more widely used"
> >
> > But most of these claims have proved experimentally false, and
> > I think this is another such case. If someone produced a much
> > improved c2ada, I doubt this would suddenly make Ada popular.
>
> I agree.
> Experimentally, one must aknowledge that today Ada is far less popular
> than other languages, even than much younger ones.
> This will not suddenly and magically change without real questions and
> answers about that.

It probably won't "suddenly and magically" change in any case :-) :-)

I would contend that the reasons why Ada has not caught on yet are
fairly well understood.

Here's one answer for your consideration: "To those making decisions
about implementation languages (on whatever scale -- individual, team,
corporate...), the perceived costs of using Ada outweigh the percieved
value."

And I think what we have now is a kind of perception "inversion", where
the value as perceived is deflated (because people don't understand or
appreciate the benefits), and the perceived costs are inflated.

For Ada to grow, its percieved value needs to rise and/or its perceived
costs need to fall.  For both of these aspects, effort needs to be
directed at both actuality and perceptions.  For instance, more real
value can be added to the overall Ada value proposition through the
creation of more and better tools, libraries, and components; meanwhile
more efforts need to be made to help people to appreciate the value of
Ada -- this is where, as you point out, there is a need for people who
know how to get out of "preaching to the choir" mode and communicate in
a way that understands the target audience.

Similarly, with the cost aspect -- whatever can be done to reduce
actual costs will help, and we also need to help get the perception of
relative cost down where it belongs.

Also, there's no one-size-fits all approach to promoting Ada.  An
effective approach to addressing programmers I think would be totally
different from an effect approach to adddressing decision makers at the
level where financial considerations are the primary concern.

Before anyone points out that my "perceived cost and value" answer is
vacuous and question-begging, let me be the first! :-)  Underlying that
answser is a complex of issues (most of which I think are still not
terribly hard to understand) that all contribute to a critical-mass
effect (a.k.a. "self-fulfilling prophecy").  For a good discussion of
critical-mass economic phenomena, read Thomas C. Schelling's
book, "Micromotives and Macrobehaviors" -- Chapter 3, "Thermostats,
Lemons, and Other Families of Models".


> Most explanations we read can unfortunately be summarized by :
>
> "Ada is the best, the rest of the world should start to understand it"
> followed by a bunch of technical justifications
>
> This is the main thing that really experimentally proved to be totally
> counterproductive, even if this is often true.
> Only Ada users really care about those explanations.
> So the result is that Ada users keep convincing one another that they
> made the best choice.
> This is totally useless since they are already convinced.
> The only consequence is that this keep us blind at the fact that we
> haven't the slightest chance to promote Ada with this attitude.

I agree completely...

Mark Lundquist
Rational Software


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