From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-03-02 08:39:05 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-06!sn-xit-09!supernews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.airnews.net!cabal12.airnews.net!usenet From: "John R. Strohm" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 10:27:05 -0600 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America Message-ID: X-Orig-Message-ID: References: <3E5EDCB1.C841AFDD@adaworks.com> <3E60215B.8E1CB727@adaworks.com> Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library1-aux.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Sun Mar 2 10:36:51 2003 NNTP-Posting-Host: !cCdZ1k-XcXpmU: (Encoded at Airnews!) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:34798 Date: 2003-03-02T10:27:05-06:00 List-Id: "Marin David Condic" wrote in message news:b3qbpo$tq5$1@slb5.atl.mindspring.net... > Well, the language wars are never really over, are they? Technology keeps > marching on, new projects get started with what is then the latest & > greatest technology. The world turns and the more things change the more > they look the same. :-) > > What I would like to see is an army of small-time developers building better > products and shamelessly using Ada to do it. (Put that little "Ada Inside" > sticker on it! :-) One could think big, like an Ada-OS or an Ada version of > Star Office or an Ada version of Quicken (Is there a good open-source > checkbook/accounting program out there?) One could think small, like tools > for education (tutorial software for languages, math & statistics packages > for academic uses, etc.) or hacker tools within the organization. One could > think about the new products the company is planning and see how to get Ada > to fit in there. Whatever angle it goes, the objective is to build really > solid, reliable software and put that "Ada Inside" sticker on it. > > The beauty of it is that if this army of small-timers goes out and makes > reliable products and Ada starts gaining some visibility & reputation as a > result, you'd have the DoD contractors looking at the "New Wave" and > wondering how they missed the boat the first time around. The irony of it > would be delicious, wouldn't it? :-) Actually, there's a flip side. If Ada really is as good as we all believe it is, if it really does offer the productivity gains we all believe it does, then a company that took Ada seriously for product development would quickly carve out a price/performance/profitability niche that no one else could touch. That company would, out of enlightened self-interest, KEEP QUIET about the fact that they were using Ada, treating it as competition-sensitive proprietary information. (To quote Mary Jane, "Does Macy's tell Gimbel's?") On the gripping hand, at least some of those competitors would send their development offshore to India, where programmers cost half as much (or less) than they do in the U.S. The recent Slashdot pieces about Microsoft come to mind.