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=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,195192df9a9d1eb4,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Richard Riehle Subject: MPA-Ada. Again Date: 1996/05/16 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 155187260 organization: National University, San Diego content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-05-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Caution: This is a rather long non-technical essay devoted to my personal. opinion on the captioned topic. You may want to skip it for some other time, or delete it all together. It is my occasional good fortune to enjoy the brief company of people who make decsions about the future of their coporate enterprise. This is purely an accident deriving from my visibility as a published scribbler, and it sometimes affords me an opportunity to buttonhole the startled decision-maker and sometimes to be buttonholed myself. In a recent such encounter with a industry official whose company has relied heavily on defense appropriations, the subject of leveraging existing corporate software resources came up. Since I am rarely bereft of an opinion on such things, I shared my views. To my astonishment, the response was something like, "But who can we find to fund the development?" My reply was, "You take a corporate risk and fund it yourselves. Then you sell the product on the open market." This is an odd concept for people who have lived their entire lives in the build-it-only-if-funded world. Where is this going, Richard? On this forum, last month, the subject of Fortran and massively-parallel computers (MPA) enagaged the attention of some readers. The question was whether Ada had a chance to make a difference in the world of massively- parallel architectures. Many correspondents to this forum believe Ada would be perfect for MPA, even though MPA-Fortran is already in place. Now, HP has further legitimized MPA with a brand new system. It was announced today. Looks like a good architecture. This is a perfect opportunity for a Lockheed, TRW, Loral, or whoever is left in the MDE (Military-Defense Establishment), to invest in a project to build an MPA-Ada compiler for the new HP architecture. As of right now, there is no programming language better suited to MPA, and such a product would have the multiple benefits of, 1) providing a unique commercial software opportunity for a large investor such as one of the MDE coporations, 2) put a fair number of software developers to work on some really interesting projects, 3) create a superior environment for MPA software development because nothing comes close to Ada for this domain, 4) open another avenue of commercialization for Ada I suspect that MPA is unique enough that this is not just a simple port of GNAT. Oh, GNAT might be part of the underlying technology, but it is going to require a whole set of supporting tools. Lest anyone think this is a small market, think again. The potential is huge. The kinds of problems that can only be solved using something akin to MPA is growing. The constraint on using it for more problems is the lack of programming environments and tools. Here is one of those opportunities which can be most effectively tackled by someone with the economic resources to make it a reality. TRW, Lockheed, Westinghouse, United Defense, Loral, Grumman, and brother MDE'ers ... any one of them could make the investment and reap the future rewards. Of course, there is always the question, "But who is going to provide the funding?" Richard Riehle