Re: AIA Position on Ada

["Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93" <condicma@PWFL.COM>]

Brian Rogoff <rogoff@SCCM.STANFORD.EDU> writes:
>Well, that little chestnut ("There's more C stuff out there...") can be
>expanded quite a bit
>
>(1) There is a larger existing base of C code than Ada code
>(2) There are more tools for C than for Ada
>(3) There are more programmers familiar with C than with Ada
>etc.
>
    No dispute with this. There are lots of expansions of my loosely
    used term: "stuff" and it clearly has to include things like
    experienced personnel, infrastructure, etc.

>I believe that what is going on is an example of positive feedback in a
>control system. Once a technology is a bit more popular than a competing
>technology, its popularity becomes the reason that people choose it over its
>competitors. Hence time to market is usually more important than quality,
>
    I like the "positive feedback" analogy - I think it explains a
    lot. I think the thing to remember is that this is not
    necessarily a bad thing. Businesses exist to make money, not
    promote a specific technology. Hence when the costs of a
    technology come down because of volume, there's less interest in
    it's technical merit and more in it's ability to get the job out
    the door at the minimal cost. In other words: Who cares if it
    makes the engineers "happy" or not? Does it make the stockholders
    money?

>important. Also, arguments like "VMS was better than UNIX" are plain wrong.
>The Symbolics Lisp machine environment circa 1985 was arguably better than
>any OS of the time, yet it didn't run on any other hardware. UNIX is
>portable, VMS isn't. Too fucking bad for VMS and Symbolics. Similar arguments
>can be made for the Mac (expensive, closed, yet functional and elegant)
>
    I'll disagree on this point: VMS is a better OS than UNIX and
    that's a fact. The Symbolics Lisp machine may have been better
    than VMS, but it doesn't change my original statement. The fact
    that VMS didn't catch on as well as UNIX is due to a lot of
    factors, not the least of which is that DEC made it so
    proprietary. But it still illustrates my point about how
    technological superiority isn't always (or often) necessary to
    becoming the dominant technology.

    BTW: If any of you guys at DEC, IBM, Apple, et alia, are
    listening, now's the time to PAY ATTENTION: _EVERY_ time you've
    decided to lock up your hardware or software as "Proprietary" and
    "Closed" with the hopes of "Cornering The Market", you eventually
    _LOOSE_!!! (You get 100% of an ever shrinking pie). Whenever you
    guys build a system that's "Open" so that other companies or
    individuals can play in the same game, you _WIN_!!! (You get X% of
    an ever expanding pie.) Does it take a rocket scientist to figure
    it out? (And if it did, well... we just so happen to have one
    handy. ;-)

    MDC

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        407.796.8997
M/S 731-96                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Fax:        407.796.4669
P.O. Box 109600                                 Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600                  Internet:   CONDIC@FLINET.COM
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