Re: Proving Correctness (was Java Portability)

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

There is an argument that goes something like this: It doesn't particularly
matter *why* people are choosing development environments that have all
sorts of integrated tools and it doesn't particularly matter if this is a
*good* thing or not. The fact remains that the market is out there buying
things like MSVC++, etc. If Ada wants to gain popularity in those markets,
it has to come to the table with at least what customers are currently
buying. (id est, some kind of IDE that is integrated with source level
debugging, a GUI builder, class libraries, etc.)

Now that may not be the smart decision for buyers to make and maybe one can
suggest to the buyer that it isn't smart and offer some alternative answer.
But remember that you do need an alternative answer - I doubt it will fly to
say "Go assemble the pieces you want from the Internet and cobble it
together for yourself." (At least not in any sort of mass manner. It hasn't
so far, has it?)

So, IMHO, Ada needs to be more "Customer Centered" and offer the users &
potential users the kinds of things they are currently buying. There is a
huge cost to an organization to switch from technology they are currently
using to something new, so they need to see that they are getting some sort
of productivity advantage in doing so. They want to see that they have all
the tools they get with their current technology & then some. Lots of
developers are being driven by time-to-market and minimal cost solutions
because of highly competitive situations. Expecting a large investment in
researching the best possible tools, assembling the pieces from a variety of
places, gluing them together in some manner and training people to use the
cobbled-together pieces is not very attractive when a competitor can come
along and say "See? I've got it all in one box and there's a good collection
of documents that work your people through how to use it and you're up and
running right away."

Or we can say "What you want doesn't make sense and when you smarten up,
you'll choose Ada" - but that hasn't worked well so far in terms of
capturing a large 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/


"Georg Bauhaus" <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message
news:9kchn1$lng$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de...
>
> Yes, I've read his posting. True, if you are or have to be impatient
> because of deadlines say, you want a DWIM IDE with much reusable
> software and a slot in
> it that reads: "Put your needed libraries in here, I'll care
> for the rest". Or better, they are already there.
> This is important for people who cannot afford reading
> documentation accompanying software components, and install after.
> They won't buy otherwise.  So the Microsoft delusion
> technique has caught on.
>
> I agree that to convince some people it must look like you are
> doing profitable work right after the install wizard has
> finished it's work. But I doubt this will lead to effective
> use of an IDE. Wich is not relevant for some marketing, true.
>