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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-04-15 18:21:42 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!01cc3b7c!not-for-mail Reply-To: "Richard Riehle" From: "Richard Riehle" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <20040206174017.7E84F4C4114@lovelace.ada-france.org> <54759e7e.0402071124.322ea376@posting.google.com> <406EB6D2.8030801@noplace.com> <87d66pyw1g.fsf@insalien.org> <406EEC35.7040109@noplace.com> <874qs0zvy1.fsf@insalien.org> <87zn9sygtj.fsf@insalien.org> Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:21:41 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.81.217.146 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net 1082078501 66.81.217.146 (Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:21:41 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:21:41 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:7182 Date: 2004-04-16T01:21:41+00:00 List-Id: Ada is not for dummies. To seduce programmer wannabees into believing that is might be a disservice to them and to the industry. There are several excellent books available for free that people can download from the Web. John English's book is a good start. My book, Ada Distilled, has proven to be popular among some interested parties. The Lovelace Tutorial continues to attract a following. The inability of Ada to attract a popular following is not due to the lack of good educational tools. Rather, it is due to misperceptions rooted in some historical difficulties associated with the language. Some computer professionals continue to believe Ada is a language used only by and for military applications. Compiler vendors, including Rational, IBM, and HP, when they were supporting Ada, isolated Ada in their Federal Systems Sales divisions and rarely, if ever, discussed it with their commercial customers. Compiler vendors, with a few exceptions (e.g., Meridian, RR Software) priced Ada compilers at a price so unattractive for commercial customers that few commercial developers could even consider Ada as an option. They realized, while the "mandate" was in effect that they had the DoD "over a barrel" and could charge whatever they wanted. There were no libraries available that made Ada easy to use on the new Personal Computers of the 1980's. Ada compilers were more difficult to use, and a BASIC programmer could write powerful programs for simple business problems more easily than most Ada compiler users. Meridian tried to overcome this problem with its DOS libraries, but there were problems with those libraries that created frustration among even the advocates of Ada. Starting with Ada 95, Ada got better. Its reputation did not get better. Once a language, product, or person is saddled with a bad reputation, it is difficult to overcome it. It did not help that the DoD abrogated its support for Ada in the mid-90's. This was seen, by the software community at large as not only the abandonment of Ada for all DoD projects, but the death knell for the language itself. Companies solely dedicated to Ada suddenly found themselves with a diminishing customer base. The resulting reduction in the sale of Ada compilers and tools led to layoffs, corporate restructuring, mergers in which Ada products virtually vanished, and smaller number of universities choosing Ada as part of their curriculum. Ada continues to be one of the best options for developing robust software. Even if it were the best option, that would not be enough. We need to somehow get the message to the larger software community that Ada is a good alternative to the languages already popular. For several years, during the 1990's, I, along with others, had the opportunity to get the message out through writing articles about Ada's success. I know of several organizations that were attracted to Ada through some of those articles. One company's engineering manager called me and asked for a presentation on Ada for his engineers. After the presentation they were enthusiastic about using it for their commercial real-time applications. Then they encountered a compiler vendor, one of the most prominent of the compiler vendors of the 1990's. The Ada representatives of the compiler vendor did not understand commercial applications or commercial needs. They approached the entire problem as they would a "funded" military project. Their prices were too high. Their service too military-oriented. Their attitude was interpreted by the prospect as, "We don't really know how to serve you and we already have plenty of military customers who are a lot less trouble than you." Whether this was their intent, this is how the prospect percieved them. We lost that large multinational company to C++, not because C++ was better, but because of the attitudes of the compiler vendor. This story is not unique. As long as Ada was considered, even by its advocates, a primarily a "government" language, it had no chance to survive in commercial industry. Now, Ada is not directly tied to the military. In fact, most military contractors have rejected it in favor of C++ or Java. I see that directly because so many of my military contractor clients have all but abandoned Ada. One excuse for doing so is the lame, "We can't find experience Ada programmers." If we want to revitalize interest in Ada, we must do so by creating good systems in Ada. I mean by this, good commercial software products. As we do so, we can make it known that the quality of these products is, in part, because we used Ada. At present, with the exception of ACT and RR Software, even the Ada compiler vendors use other languages for their own internal software projects. Ada can be popular. It is all uphill from here. Ada programmers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your C++. Richard Riehle "Ludovic Brenta" wrote in message news:87zn9sygtj.fsf@insalien.org... > I would add that, I think the best way to promote Ada is to write "Ada > for Dummies" books and litter bookstores with them. This, of course, > requires millions of bucks in marketing. At the same time, there > should be a press campaign in "Joe User's Home PC Magazine" saying > that "Ada in the Entreprise" is the next big thing. Pointy-haired > managers and apprentice programmers alike read this kind of magazine > religiously. > > Combined, these two actions would create the illusion that "everyone > uses Ada". As Sun and Java, and C++, have demonstrated, this illusion > becomes reality when sufficiently many people believe it. > > -- > Ludovic Brenta.