Re: Would you use Ada more if...

["Marin D. Condic" <not.valid@acm.org>]

Well, its not that hard to understand. Bookstores don't want to stock books
unless some fair number of people are going to pick them up off the shelf
and pay for them. Conference organizers don't want to bring in lectures that
folks won't find relevant to their current work or needs. Magazines don't
want to publish articles advocating a language that is perceived as having
largely been ignored. You can't really blame people for following the
market.

I am convinced that better PR is a) not likely to happen and b) not likely
to change anything. We in the Ada community tend to stand around saying
"Look, its a really great language..." - which may be true, but is not
nearly so compelling as "Here's this spiffy thing I built with Ada...." or
"Here's how I made my first million dollars with Ada..." (The two possibly
being closely related.)

You observe that articles about other things with an "Oh, by the way, it was
done with Ada..." line is right on track. People want to see that something
cool was done and will be less concerned about the language. If what was
done was truly cool, they'll pick up the code and start fiddling around with
it and you'll find new converts to the language that way. I doubt people
want to read dozens of articles about how cool *any* language is. They'd
rather read an article on how someone implemented some tricky math thing or
clever navigation thing or internet web thing and if they discover that it
was done with Ada, they'll have an incentive to learn something about the
language.

Likewise, if a software product is built and a successful business is
established selling it (or related services & support - it amounts to the
same thing) that's the sort of thing that people will take notice of. If Ada
is *really* better at building mousetraps, then it would seem that a little
entrepreneurial activity along those lines will be rewarded. When someone
can stand up and say "We're making more money than our competitors and one
of the big reasons for that is our software quality due to Ada..." its going
to get noticed and immitated. When someone dreams up a new electronic gadget
and programs it in Ada, it will help create that critical mass. When someone
develops a new business system and programs it in Ada, they'll create more
Ada jobs and more interest in the language will result. The way for Ada to
become a market force is for the Ada-philes to construct a market that uses
Ada.

When that happens, the PR will be a natural outflow. Waiting for some
organization to start a PR campaign is probably fruitless, but creating
success will breed more success and with it will come the favorable PR.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com

Enabling Digital.
Our Vision is to be the biggest supplier worldwide of digital gateway
technology.
www.pacemicro.com

"Richard Riehle" <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3D612669.2B0BA48C@adaworks.com...
>
> What is just as bad is that no Ada books appear on the shelves
> of bookstores anymore, even those that specialize in computer
> books.   Book publishers, all of them as nearly as I can determine,
<snip>