Re: How come Ada isn't more popular?

[<adaworks@sbcglobal.net>]

<artifact.one@googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:1169531612.200010.153120@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> My question is: how come Ada isn't more popular?
>
Ada suffered, in its early days, from a convergence of several
things.  One is that the designers of the language did not anticipate
the impact of the personal computer and the democratization of
computing.   There were other factors, as well.

1)  The DoD mandated Ada before there were any good compilers
     or development environments in place.   That began a routine
     practice of rubber-stamping waivers to use other languages.

2) The compiler publishers, having a captive audience, inflated the
     price of compilers and tools, making Ada unattractive for anyone
     in the non-DoD world.  For example, Alsys sold a compiler for
     the personal computer at $4000 per copy thereby putting out
     of the range of most companies and every hobbyist.

     Turbo Pascal and other alternatives were already in place and
     much cheaper than Ada.   A few brave souls tried to compete
     with products such as RR Software's Janus Ada and Meridian's
     AdaVantage, but the full environment (e.g., integrated editors,
     debuggers, etc.) were not in place they were for Turbo Pascal.

3)  Inept DoD management of the Ada initiative.  Sometimes it seemed
     that the DoD was trying to make Ada a bad choice for businesses.
     The public line was that they wanted commercial users, but the
     practices often put barriers in the way.

4)  Other languages were cheaper to acquire, cheaper to use, and had
     no copyight associated with them.   The copyright was eventually
     removed, but late.

5) The earliest compilers were not uniformly good.  I recall the mainframe
    compiler from Telesoft was, when compared to other language choices,
    simply terrible.   It was slow, had an awkward development environment,
    and did not support the central features of the mainframe very well.

    Many of those early compilers were "checkbox" compilers.   On the form
    where one had to check-off "Validated Ada Compiler" the fact that a 
validated
    compiler was available was considered enough.   One compiler I recall quite
    vividly was for the Tandem.   Although the compiler was validated, that same
    compiler was not integrated into the rest of the system tools, and barely
    supported by the operating system.   The word in the Tandem management
    was that no one was expected to take Ada seriously, but the checkbox had
    to be supported.   This was quite widespread in the industry.

6) Really good compilers began to appear around 1989.   By then Ada's reputation
    for being slow, cumbersome, and hard to use had already been firmly set.

7) Instruction in the language was bad.   I recall a U.S. Navy Admiral 
complaining
    about how hard it was to teach anyone Ada.   He described the efforts he put
    in place to make this happen.    I told him he had hired people to do the 
teaching
    who were incompetent.   That was true, but they had PhD's and he thought 
that
    should have ensured success.   The fact was that those teachers had not yet 
come
    to a full understanding of the Ada and their own confusion was more a source 
of
    obfuscation than enlightenment for the students.

8) Grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.   In the mid-90's, when Ada became
    a powerful alternative to other languages, when tools were in place, the 
language
    modernized, and the availability of low-cost (or free) compilers could have 
made
    it attractive, the DoD lost its nerve and gave the impression that Ada was 
no longer
    part of the DoD language requirement.  A lot of people misinterpreted this 
and thought
    the DoD had decided to abandon Ada entirely.

9) Traitors.   Some people who were previously charged with promoting Ada, in
     particular certain former AJPO officials, once having left government, 
exploited
     their former role and joined the forces against Ada.   They were able to 
use their
     title as former ... to gain credibility and lobby against the use of Ada in 
exactly
     the places where it was appropriate to lobby for it.

Ada is not now, nor has it ever been, the perfect language.  There is no perfect
language.  However, anyone who understands Ada and has a good understanding
of the competing technologies realizes that Ada continues to be the most 
appropriate
choice when the requirement is for a language that will improve the probability 
of
an error-free software product at a reasonable cost.  The alternatives, mostly C
and C++ are generally less dependable.  In fact, I often wonder why anyone would
pick a language that is inherently error-prone (e.g., C++) and expect a result 
that
is error-free.

If one does an objective comparison of Ada to its alternatives, in the design 
and
constuction of dependable software, Ada will come in with high marks -- higher
than most alternatives.   If one is looking for a language that is well-suited 
to
supporting a long-lived software system, Ada is certainly better than most of
the alternatives.

More could be said in favor of Ada.   I will leave that more to others.

Richard Riehle