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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,60e2922351e0e780 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-13 10:03:30 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!elnk-pas-nf1!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!sjc70.webusenet.com!news.webusenet.com!nf3.bellglobal.com!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Re-Marketing Ada (was "With and use") References: <3FAF8C99.5040201@noplace.com> <3FB0B57D.6070906@noplace.com> <3FB22125.1040807@noplace.com> <3FB3751D.5090809@noplace.com> In-Reply-To: <3FB3751D.5090809@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 12:49:02 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.96.223.163 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1068745705 198.96.223.163 (Thu, 13 Nov 2003 12:48:25 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 12:48:25 EST Organization: Bell Sympatico Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2453 Date: 2003-11-13T12:49:02-05:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic wrote: > Ever heard of hiding a lamp under a bushel basket? You can have the > greatest technology in the world, but if you can't effectively > *communicate* that to a wide number of people how are they going to know > about it or be inspired to try it out? Ada has been one public-relations > disaster after another from its inception. People felt it was being > rammed down their throats. They had the perception it was slow, buggy > and way too expensive. They didn't think it addressed their problems and > that it would not work. We can stand here all day and say "That's not > true!!!" but effectively, that message did not get sent to the wide > range of potential users. Marketing, advertising and sales might have > helped that a lot. > ... > > So we've got another language revision coming out. The problem is it is > more of an "incremental" revision - relatively minor enhancements to the > language rather than anything new and big with respect to capabilities. > If Ada had some revolutionary new thing to offer, it might have > something to hype within the media. (Like if it had a library that went > beyond what people traditionally expect?) If it had something *new* to I think most of us would agree that Ada was ahead of its time when it came out. By 1995, I believe the "market" had probably already accepted C/C++ as the dominant language, largely due to its widespread use in operating systems (UNIX + NT), and major applications. Even in 1995 (including up to present) the kind of thing you hear now is "I remember Ada". Immediatly the association is that it is "old", even though C is just as old (younger folks often havn't even heard of it, unless the University taught it). Even though Ada has been updated, and going through another update, people seem to remember it as a "once was" technology. Or they remember it was too big, or too slow. People tend to see C as lean and mean, and C++ not much different. The Ada compiler technology was a challenge for ancient hardware, but people seem to fail to realize that even though applications, O/S's have bloated over the years and CPUs have kept pace, that Ada translaters are no longer "huge" burdens on todays hardware. Witness the speed that GNAT runs on a laptop. Witness the small disk footprint of GNAT on a 120GB hard drive ;-) I think one possible prong of a concerted new Ada marketing campaign needs to be: "Ada is still ahead of its time" or perhaps something like: "Ada is still ahead of the pack" or some such. Somehow we have to shake this impression that Ada is old, outdated, fat or ugly. I have said this before, if Ada was marketed by a company, the best approach might be to rename the technology with some improvements. Then in the fine print say something along the lines of "The X language was based primarily upon the lessons learned from Ada". Then the press, might view this as an exciting new technology and get the printing presses rolling again. As it stands now, the press too often remembers it as a "has been". Any technical writers are often too steeped in C/C++, to give it any credit, which also works against it. Just my $0.02 for today. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg