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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ac39a12d5faf5b14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,877ba3d67e73c6c3 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-16 21:07:57 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: Rant! (was) Development process in the Ada community Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:53:43 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3CB46975.90408@snafu.de> <5ee5b646.0204121930.64733eeb@posting.google.com> <5wTt8.15598$C21.3515342@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com> <5ee5b646.0204130620.114953ae@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1018976026 18401 136.170.200.133 (16 Apr 2002 16:53:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 Apr 2002 16:53:46 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22631 misc.misc:6427 Date: 2002-04-16T16:53:46+00:00 List-Id: "martin.m.dowie" wrote in message news:fFXu8.31411$tZ1.7228185@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com... > > Nice idea, but who? > Good question. Defer for a moment, but think along the lines of "Big Into Computers..." > Boeing are an obvious candidate given their history of Ada use - but is that > still true? And even it it was, it just reinforces the preconception that > Ada is > only any use in the avionics field (which I think we can all appriciate is > not > true). > >From rumors I've heard Boeing is drifting away from Ada for a lot of the same reasons as other aerospace firms - the programmers want to work in something more marketable. Besides, Boeing is an airframer and not a computer company, so they have limited influence on what other computer companies would do. Unless maybe you just want to sell them on the idea of building a development environment for various systems and have them pay the freight of doing the development cost. But then they've got an ownership interest which they'd have to be stupid to ignore - and you're in bed with the elephant. > Reuters news agency I understand use it but not throughout. > Probably not big enough and certainly not in the "technology" business to want to finance some computer project. > CANAL+ could be a better bet - are you out there Pascal? > Maybe - but are they big enough and interested enough to finance some sort of Ada endeavor? > Anyone else any better ideas?.. > Some of this depends on what you think you want to do as far as "A Thing Financed By A Deep Pockets Contributor That Has A Side Effect Of Promoting Ada..." Say the objective is to build the world's spiffiest IDE for/with Ada. Ada's advantages are reliability and portability. Suppose you had someone like Compaq who thought it might be attractive to the market to provide OS-agnosticism: "Yeah, we'll give you a computer with Windows or Linux or Both!" (It would distinguish them from Sun, and other PC makers maybe?) But now they've got to encourage development that compliments their strategy. Suppose they could offer developers a kit that would let them use gcc-based compilers to target both OS's? We say: Sure! No sweat! We can build an IDE & some libraries and what have you that lets an app builder develop for one direction and recompile to go the other way. We can fix it so that any of the gcc based compilers could be your choice for development (language-agnostic) but we implemented in Ada, so it will just be more natural and easy to use Ada... Or suppose that IBM figures that its time to produce the next generation of personal computer and try to regain the market share it once had? We say: Sure! We can help! We'll go build you a new state-of-the-art OS programmed in Ada that will distinguish your product with higher reliability and security... Or much nearer and dearer to my heart: What about the Digital TV set-top box business? If we were proposing to build an OS/Development package that targeted this sort of device and offered higher reliability with faster time to market, etc. as a consequence of including Ada software, you've got access to a whole burgeoning market that is likely to attract lots of new developers. Where I'm going with this is somewhere along the lines of dreaming up a whole product that has Ada as a significant component and selling the idea to some big guy in that market. Get them thinking along the lines of incorporating Ada as a key piece of their product. You'd have to think of something that leaves them to some extent "language neutral" since they won't want to jump into Ada with both feet and not have alternatives. The strategy there is to dream something up that says "You can use any language you want - it will just be easier with Ada because that's where it all comes from..." (That's one of the reasons C got to be big, right?) Think about it...... MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com