Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered?

[jsa@organon.com (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <4ppb89$gbq@gde.GDEsystems.COM> Michael Levasseur <levass@gdesystems.com> writes:

> Theodore E. Dennison wrote:
>...
> > In any event, you can now get an Ada compile for FREE.
> 
> Yes, but do you know of any major DoD projects that are be developed
> using GNAT? When you buy a FREE compiler you get what you pay for.

Hmmm, in this case what you get is something better (in some cases a
_LOT_ better) than most of the Ada83 compilers that cost 10s of
thousands of dollars per seat.  The trick is to get support with
it (which as I've said has been for me much better than what I've
seen from others software vendors).


> Remember what the "Ada Mandate" was created to do. It was created to
> reduce the DoD software maintanence of over 200 langauges down to
> just one. The commercial world has now paired the major languages
> down to a handfull. It is now time to drop the Ada Mandate! If
> Ada is as strong as everyone says, clearly it will thrive and survive.

Yes, I believe this may be the right thing to do.  It might even help
remove the stigma of government from the language.  It is a tricky and
non obvious issue, but overall, this probably would be a good idea.


> I personnally believe that if that "Ada Mandate" was removed,
> Ada would take it's place in history like Jovial, Pascal, and Atlas...

I don't think so - these examples were either not commercially viable
or too limited in scope.  Another way of looking at this is to look at
the Eiffel market.  While not jumbo, there are signs that there is a
truly viable market emerging there even though Eiffel does not yet
have the level of support and use that Ada currently does.  So, this
is kind of a "proof" of concept that it is possible to market a good
software engineering language.  The real key is to hook enough
_commercial_ development into seeing the significantly better
capabilities of Ada over C (or C++) and that it has sufficient support
so that projects have good assurance that they will realize those
benefits.  Whether the government has enough brains to follow this is
really irrelevant (my guess is they don't - being knee jerk
"fadophiles").

/Jon

-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
1 Williston Road, Suite 4
Belmont, MA 02178

617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com