Re: AdaMax? (was: ada to C++ translation)

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:4519e058.0203041210.5f878d07@posting.google.com...
>
> What does all of this have to do with Ada? Damn near nothing. If we
> had to make an analogy into the videocassete market, VCR's (and their
> formats) would be machine languages (CPUs, OS's, programming
> platforms, etc.), tapes would be the executable programs, and
> programming languages would be sort of analogous to the the camera
> techniques used to film the original shows before they transfered to
> tape. If damn near everyone else uses an inferior or inefficient one,
> there's no real reason that has to affect a content developer's choice
> at all. A tool vendor would certianly prefer to make tools targeted to
> that larger camera technique user-base (assuming that market isn't
> oversaturated). But this has nothing whatsever to do with Beta vs.
> VHS.
>

O.K. but to stretch the analogy a little further. Look at regular, vs HDTV.
A content developer might like HDTV, but if the camera equipment, etc., is
too expensive (development environments) or the tools aren't available to
get the HDTV picture to work on standard TV equipment (compilers targeted to
the platform) or the picture is too big to fit the screen (compiled code is
too large/inefficient) or the "better" standard doesn't enable you to use
the features of the existing equipment (lack of libraries, etc.) then there
is a strong incentive to go with the lower quality standard TV picture.

While Ada has fixed a large number of these problems, its still important to
look at it as a lesson. There's more to it than just the superiorness (is
that a word?) of the technology in question. HDTV is wonderful, but there
have to be a lot of other pieces in place for HDTV to succeed. A great
picture that you can't deliver down the chain (or that you can't get there
in a timely manner) is just an interesting curiosity.

Like all analogies, there are weaknesses and flaws, but I think the point
can be understood from it anyway. Ada has become inexpensive and efficient.
Its done a good job of being available on a large number of platforms. Its
starting to get there with tools, libraries, etc., but still has some
distance to go in this area. We need to constantly look at the whole chain
and see what Ada isn't providing to the market that other languages do. It
can't be "better" just on the level of its syntax and semantics - it has to
be "better" (not "just as good") at getting an end product in the hands of
the end user or there isn't much incentive to switch. (IOW, VHS was "better"
at getting a movie into the hands of a viewer than was Beta.)

Most of us here can see any number of ways Ada is "better" in a variety of
domains. We just need to keep thinking about the whole chain when trying to
understand how to get it adopted more widely.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/