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-Thread: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!newscon04.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr12.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <1169531612.200010.153120@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: How come Ada isn't more popular? X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.134.135.166 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr12.news.prodigy.net 1169534251 ST000 70.134.135.166 (Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:37:31 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:37:31 EST Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: [[PAPDONTBWQR]TX\ZIBNFXBWR\HPCTL@XT^OBPLAH[\BPIB_NVUAH_[BL[\IRKIANGGJBFNJF_DOLSCENSY^U@FRFUEXR@KFXYDBPWBCDQJA@X_DCBHXR[C@\EOKCJLED_SZ@RMWYXYWE_P@\\GOIW^@SYFFSWHFIXMADO@^[ADPRPETLBJ]RDGENSKQQZN Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:37:31 GMT Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8406 Date: 2007-01-23T06:37:31+00:00 List-Id: 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