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=1.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE,THIS_AD autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5fbdd2f66f1fc754,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-11-04 06:48:44 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Ada vendors abandon Ada in November Emb.Sys.Prog. Message-ID: Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 14:48:44 GMT Date: 1994-11-04T14:48:44+00:00 List-Id: For those of you who can afford to go to Tri-Ada next week, while you are there and see a room full of Ada vendors saying all sorts of nice things about Ada, ask yourself (and them): "How come these people never show up anywhere else as enthusiastically as at Tri-Ada and STSC?". Case in point. The November 1994 issue of Embedded Systems Programming has two very well written articles about Ada. The first is titled "Ada for Space Applications" written by Richard Riehle, and the second is titled "Cruising for Ada" written by Do-While Jones. The articles clearly illustrate some of the benefits of Ada, especially Jones' article which has some nice source examples and cost/benefit analysis comments. These articles are almost good enough that someone reading them might say "Gee - maybe I should get some info on Ada compilers and try it out." It is this type of comment that all Ada Dual-Use activities should be directed towards - getting people to want to try out Ada. It is then once again very disappointing to see the complete apathetic attitude of the Ada vendors to take advantage of these special Ada issues of magazines - NONE OF WHOM ADVERTISED IN THIS ADA ISSUE OF EMBEDDED SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING. This is intolerable and just further illustrates the hypocrisy of some Ada supporters. This issue of Embedded Systems Programming would have been ideal to place many Ada ads to capture the interest generated by these articles of Riehle and Jones, and certainly as you walk the floor of Tri-Ada you will see plenty of Ada vendors. This issue would have been perfect to drum up new leads and business with an ad. And Ada vendors can't claim ignorance of this magazine, after all, every month Intermetrics manages to find the inside front cover of the magazine to place a full page ad for its 68XXX real time C programming environment. Why not an Ada ad, especially given Intermetric's participation in Ada9X efforts? Why not announce a seminar series by Tucker Taft about the benefits of Ada9X, if Intermetrics doesn't want to offer Ada tools? Why didn't any of the STARS contractors with the great breakthrough tools advertise in this issue? Why didn't any of the Ada9X contractors advertise something about Ada9X? What's more embarassing and undermining for Ada is the Tri-Ada ad that appears in this issue in the middle of Jones' article. At one point the ad talks about "a catalog of industry resources" implying vendors somewhere, but it's hard not to conclude that the Ada industry isn't anything more than a marginal niche, based on the nearly complete absence of Ada advertising and promotions outside the Mandated world. Besides, this Tri-Ada is still poorly prepared and does nothing to promote Ada. For example, "That's why Ada is modular". "Ada uses standard interfaces between modules". BIG FRIGGIN DEAL. Many languages whose vendors actually advertise claim that benefit to the extent that no one believes it anymore. C++, Smalltalk, Basic, and Eiffel ads and articles all claim this, so it is marginal for it to appear in this Tri-Ada ad. Just hope no one reading these comments read the Magnavox consultant's trashing-Ada article. Or we have "Just as important is Ada's easy readability. Programmers can understand code written by others, no matter where or when they wrote it." This is a very transparent lie, because most programmers know that you can really beautiful code in any language, and you can write really ugly code in any language. This is an idiotic claim to make. LANGUAGES DON'T KILL READABLE CODE, PROGRAMMERS KILL READABLE CODE. "And when you consider that through the life cycle of your average large system, changes amount to eight time the original cost, you quickly see the financial significance of Ada's software design". Well by reading just the text of this ad, I don't see the financial significance of Ada. There is no data to make such a conclusion, so claiming it not only is wrong, but plays on the vaporware fears of many programming consumers. Further no one is going to believe any such claims made by something coming out of the defense world. And finally, "life cycle" is a phrase with little meaning in the commercial software world, unfortunately. So selling to that need will fall on deaf ears, especially when you mention nothing about the size and speed of executables, which do concern commercial programmers. You might as well claim that Ada cures AIDS, a claim that follows as logically from the ad as the claim of Ada's financial benefits. This ad, like previous ads, is poorly prepared for the audience it is reaching out to, and the ad agency that prepared them should be sued, as well as the Ada vendors who refuse to butress such ads and well placed Ada articles with their own ads. I would die if I saw an ad for an Ada compiler from Alsys and Rational which actually mentioned the price. Vendors of every other language offer me CDROMs with compiler, linkers, debuggers, browsers and other tools for $99 to $499 or whatever, but most magazine readers wonder if Ada compilers are sold anywhere in any form. So as you go through the Tri-Ada trade show, ask all of these vendors, who will be saying all sorts of nice things about Ada to their DoD sources, especially those receiving the bucks from DoD Ada contracts like Ada9X and STARS and ICASE, ask them why they don't say the same things about Ada with the same fervor, with their own dollars, outside the Mandated world. They fool no one. And ask yourself why the DoD continues to tolerate such nonsense. Greg Aharonian