Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada?

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Alexander E. Kopilovich wrote:
> 
> Here you assume that everyone who has prudent interest in aiding Ada can see
> in one's neighbourhood some software development using Ada in some problem
> domain.
> 
I think I'm assuming that if you were developing software in any 
language for any particular domain, you'd see a bunch of tools sitting 
around you. Development tools, related libraries, other applications, 
etc. Chances are, if all those tools/libraries/related applications are 
developed in C, work with C or are simply oriented toward C, that you'd 
be fighting against the tide to use - say - Smalltalk. Even something as 
simple as a configuration management tool can discourage development in 
other languages. I've seen some that basically say "If you're tracking C 
code, I'll do this job and that thing and this other spiffy little task, 
but if you're any other language, you get just plain vanilla..."

My point being that if there were similar support structure in some 
problem space that was oriented toward Ada, written in Ada, compatible 
with Ada, etc., it would make Ada the natural choice. One would then be 
spitting into the wind to use something like C.



> 
> OK, Simulink. If I understand it properly, Simulink is a package that comes
> with MatLab (or there is another Simulink?). Search in Google quickly shows
> that there are some products, which support Ada with Simulink (at least those
> from universities). Probably you know or even use those products, and came to
> conclusion that they all are deficient comparing with Simulink support tools
> for C++. 
> 

Q: What does Simulink generate?
A: C

You can fight it, but all the pressure from every angle will be to 
utilize C because that's what Simulink generates.

Add to that the fact that the whole model of the way these sorts of 
tools design & operate is a kind of early vintage Fortran view of the 
universe and even if it *did* generate Ada, you're at best going to get 
Adatran code. How does Ada shine in any way if all you get is a stack of 
global variables and a bunch of subroutines to operate on them? Its 
fundamentally no better than the C you get already - so why spit into 
the wind? You even have to fight against Ada in some ways to make it 
work like Fortran/C so it only makes the job harder.

If there were a Simulink-like thing that was modeled with Ada in mind as 
the target language, it might have significant advantages *to the 
Simulink modeler-guy*. Right now, the guy generating the model has no 
reason to want to use Ada and every reason not to want to. From his 
view, all he sees is the Simulink model and attempting to generate any 
code in any language other than exactly what he is getting now (C) is 
only a pain in the ass and of no particular advantage.

If, OTOH, there was a Simulink-like modeling tool that took advantage of 
Ada-ish concepts - expressed things in terms of Ada constructs, for 
example - then the model builder would a) have the advantage of better 
abstraction, reuse of model components, better up-front consistency 
checks, etc., and b) would start having natural reasons to prefer Ada 
code generation.

This is just one example - and one that isn't elaborated on in great 
detail. Just think of similar things in different problem domains. 
People use CAD/CAM packages for mechanical design. Do they do any kind 
of code generation for modeling purposes? What do they generate? Is 
there some advantage to making the CAD/CAM tool express things in 
Ada-ish ways? (packages? strong typing? tasking? object oriented? etc?)

What about math and statistics packages? What about network 
applications? All these things (and more) have a bunch of surrounding 
tools, software libraries, related applications, etc., and even if Ada 
can play nicely with other languages, it is inherently swimming against 
the tide. If Ada  adopted one of these areas in some respect and built 
up that infrastructure, it would have Coolness Factor by providing 
capabilities not usually seen and would be providing the guy who has a 
job to do with incentives to want to use Ada.

MDC


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Marin David Condic
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