Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

["Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net>]

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"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F6852EC.4000907@noplace.com...
> Very true - and bringing the thread back on topic, I might add. However,
> as I've noted before, that truth depends on the ever nebulous "all other
> things being equal" quality that we seldom ever have in the real world.
> In a given company you have existing bodies of code, existing tools,
> existing programmer skills, requirements to interface with other
> software, etc. You have compilers for other languages that provide
> development tools, libraries, etc that add leverage. You have available
> subsystems, operating systems or other libraries you might utilize
> available from all sorts of places. Someone looking at Ada as a possible
> technology for a new project has to consider a lot more than just the
> technical merits of the language.
>
> And its worth observing that this "inertia" is currently helping Ada.
> With the DoD's current philosophy of trying to ditch Ada, its only the
> inertia of prior history in existing systems that is keeping Ada afloat
> in that market. That can't last forever, so Ada better find a way to
> start adding more value and increasing its market share.
>
> MDC
>
>
> Stephane Richard wrote:
> > And what your explaining here is yet another plus for Ada, with it's
design
> > it's made to bring your results (returns on your investment(s)) faster
than
> > other languages.
> >
>
>
> -- 
> ======================================================================
> Marin David Condic
> I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
> My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
>
> Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g
>
>      "All reformers, however strict their social conscience,
>       live in houses just as big as they can pay for."
>
>           --Logan Pearsall Smith
> ======================================================================
>

You're right, Hopefully the upcoming revision Ada 200X will help put into th
e Ada Standard at least part of what's missing to make it a good complete
development system as far as Ada itself goes.  As in integrated tools, like
the other languages, to gfive it the leverage it needs.  (I know it's a
development process, not a standarisation process) but as a standard
language.  What can a programmer expect out of Ada?   The language has no
arguments against it (except for a little bit of addons that should be
covered in Ada 200X.

althought I dont like to brag about microsoft in General.  What gave
VisualBasic it's popularity?  the integration of everything that is needed,
in a very visual way, to develop a full fledged applications from GUI
designers, to control development, to databases, to reporting, and the
likes.  Althought Aonix, ACT and other seem to offer some good set of tools
(some of which have a good base of integration), seems to me that more
integration of these tools, so they all work together to accomplish Ada's
ultimate goal would be a good approach to it.  I dont mean, by that, to try
to give users wizards to do everything either.  Where applicable might be
nice.  Integrated Code generators and semi project management (at the
code/design) level for instance might be nice.

Take the GNADE project, with more tools, that is an Ideal project to me as
integrates SQL right into Ada (there's something not given to every
programming language :-).  perhaps more efforts into the achievement of
projects such as these mgith be good for Ada in general too.  there are many
ideas as for as IDE, the language etc etc.....but like you said, we're also
talking market shares....and as such, there's not many things to compare Ada
to the rest....perhaps a bit fo competition thrown in the programming
industry might excite people and companies.  for instances, making
applications that rival other existing applications, in select fields....see
if we can do it better (which we probably can in ada) faster and have
somekind of comparison charts to give to project managers or anyone
responsible to select the "proper" development environment for a given
project.

There's many, unexplored, situations and projects that still need to be done
to give Ada a leading edge....The language speaks for itself, now it's tiem
we use it for something new :-).

-- 
St�phane Richard
Senior Software and Technology Supervisor
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