Re: Ada The Best Language?

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

Probably the important factors are not finding more productivity studies or
arguing the case with one's bosses/peers - although I doubt that hurts. My
guess is that a more important factor is/will be the availability of good
tools. Well, good tools decidedly already exist. Lets make that "good tools
integrated into a development kit".

We've heard here about lots of tools - compilers, tools for building GUIs
(GtkAda, Claw, Aonix,...) debuggers, editors, APIs (bindings to sockets, web
services, OS interfaces, etc.) Most of this stuff is free or at least cheap.
The problem is, it isn't all under one roof. That is in my mind one
important reason Ada doesn't get accepted where other languages are.
Especially by management. There is no integrated Ada solution, but there are
integrated C++, Java, etc. solutions.

Maybe some of this is in part due to Ada's portability. The emphasis is on
tools that can work anywhere and/or developers attempt to address all
platforms and all applications. Maybe if effort were concentrated on one
area with a goal of bringing up a single development kit (perhaps at least
not binding it so close to one platform that it can't possibly be portable)
this might be the skinny end of the wedge. Maybe its one seamless install
package for a Unix platform that goes head-to-head with Java - class
libraries & all. Maybe its one .ZIP file that provides everything you get
with MSVC++ and more. Maybe its an embedded development kit going from a PC
host to an SBC, complete with development board(s), cables, documents,
soup..nuts.

One thing I know it isn't is a bunch of disjointed tools that all look
different, don't work together seamlessly, come from 42 different web sites
and have to be downloaded, tweaked, compiled and coaxed into working at all.
No manager wants to dedicate one or more staff member's time to pulling
everything together, getting it to work at all and then maintaining it
in-house forever unless they have no choice. Guess what? There are choices
out there. There are integrated solutions out there and until Ada can
compete on an equal footing with them, it will forever remain an "Also Ran".

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/


"Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@home.com> wrote in message
news:3B605258.3F12BBDD@home.com...
> codesavvy wrote:
> > I would love to see Ada more widely adopted and/or the demand increase
> > for Ada developers.  The case has to be made to management not me.  My
> > question is, "Is the case for Ada being made effectively?"
>
> I guess my response is "By whom?" and "Probably not."
>