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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3975944b129842ec,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-03-10 07:47:05 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: sparky!uunet!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Why tagged types are a marketing mistake Message-ID: Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 15:37:13 GMT Date: 1993-03-10T15:37:13+00:00 List-Id: For all of the comments on tagged types versus classes, which is quite interesting to follow, I would like to offer an indirect proof that tagged types are going to be a marketing disaster for Ada9X. Last month in Boston, the annual Object World conference and trade show was held. Not a large conference in absolute size, but for the object oriented programming world, non-academic (go to OOPSLA), it was a large show. Many issues affecting the OO world were discussed at the conference, many new products pushed at the trade show. Yet Ada was nowhere to be found. Not a single company involved with the Ada9X effort either had a booth at the trade show, or had speakers at the conference. No one there making the case for concepts like tagged types. No on there making the case for Ada in general. At the trade show, I picked up a new newsletter from the Object Management group, a new organization interested in promoting and coordinating object oriented programming activities. At the back of the newsletter is a list of companies who are members of OMG, with about 280 member companies. What companies and institutions are not members of the OMG? Intermetrics, Meridian, Aetech, R&R Systems, Alsys, Paramax, SAIC, AJPO, SEI, ASSET and others: all the people involved with Ada9X. Who is a member? Pretty much every other object oriented language related company. C/C++ companies are all members, Smalltalk and Cobol companies, Lisp and Prolog companies, every language except Ada. To cut off the Ada9X efforts from the general object oriented programming world is a gross mistake that indicates to me that the designers of Ada have little interested in competing in the non-Mandated world against object oriented language. After all, Ada9X is far enough along for someone to show up at Object World and make the case for the language and diverging concepts such as tagged types. What is it, are you guys embarassed about what you are doing that you don't show up and make the case for Ada? Market share has to be won now, and not a in few years, when everything is neatly wrapped up. By then, all the windows of opportunties will be closed. Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimization -- ************************************************************************** Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimiztion P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178