Re: is ada dead?

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

One of the things that would go a long way to countering the misinformation
and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an
inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++
environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. Part
of the problem is visibility and part of the problem is the (IMHO, very
sound) argument that by picking C++ or Java or some other language, a
businessman can leverage all the stuff that comes with its toolkit (GUI
builders, debuggers, library tools, class libraries, etc.) to get to market
quicker than can be done with Ada.

Ada has historically concentrated on reducing lifecycle costs, which is a
real advantage. However, a very large chunk of the market doesn't care about
the lifecycle. They care about time to market. Right or wrong, that's what
people are buying. Ada has to sell that or it will remain "irrelavent" in
terms of the bulk market.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Lao Xiao Hai" <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:3B51DD8A.9FBCA84F@ix.netcom.com...
>
>
> We also have to do a better job of countering minsinformation.   Among the
idiotic
> things I have heard recently.   "Boeing is going to convert the B777
avionics code
> to C++."   "The FAA has abandoned Ada.  It no longer plans to do any new
development
> in Ada."   "The transition to Ada 95 is too expensive.  We plan to convert
our code
> to C++."    "There are no development tools for Ada.  We are going to use
C++ and
> Java."    Oh, and this one is still around.  "Ada is too expensive.  The
cost/benefit of
> Ada is not offset by Ada's being a better language.   We can build
software just as
> well and for less money than it would cost to use Ada."
>