Re: Free Hawaii trip if you buy my Ada products

[agate!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!inmet!dsd!ryer@ucbvax.Berkeley. EDU (Mike Ryer)]

Our compilers and tools are so expensive because the market is small.  The
market is small because a) tools are expensive, and b) anyone can see that
the market is small, so why be a poineer?

This is two interlocking vicious circles.  The way to fix it is "priming
the pump".  This is what the mandate was supposed to do, but unfortunately
it was never done.  A few dozen major DOD programs went to Ada, but the
tens of thousands of smaller programs did not.  Only a small percentage of
all computers used for DOD-funded software development have Ada compilers
installed.

So, given unwillingness by DOD to prime the pump, Ada will continue to struggle
along growing at 10-20% per year.  I believe that I'm seeing increasing
dissatisfaction with C and C++, and think that Ada will do even better, on
its own merits, over the next few years.

Ada may and may not be the best solution to an individual program manager's
immediate needs.  After all, he's not going to maintain it.  He's going to
be judged on development costs, and may be best off to use FORTH, or Jovial,
or PL/1, or COBOL if that's what his people know.  My contention is that
it would be better for everyone if they (nearly) all used Ada instead of
making an optimized point-decision for each individual project.

So, Ada will continue to grow, expanding slowly from a base of mandated
programs and people who are sold on software engineering.  The DOD won't get
the expected economy of scale anytime soon, unless they really mandate (see
my Jeweled Bearings note earlier).  But they will get benefits on the programs
that do use it, and there will be enough growth so the tools will eventually
get better and cheaper.

Sorry for the diatribe; flame away.

Mike "if I owned the DOD, ..." Ryer
speaking only for myself