Re: Advice on selling Ada to a C shop

[Phil Clayton <phil.clayton@lineone.net>]

On Jun 20, 12:01 am, use...@scriptoriumdesigns.com wrote:
> I may have the opportunity to pitch Ada for use in some new projects
> (industrial equipment) at work.  The place has been using C by
> default, not by any conscious choice, and of course they've been
> paying a typical price for that default.  The head of engineering (who
> is not a software guy) MAY be open to trying Ada if presented with a
> compelling case.  The programmers are another question - they may
> resist or they may be intrigued by some of Ada's features e.g.
> concurrency.  They may also be open to improving the very ad-hoc
> software culture now in place, and the idea of having fewer bugs, and
> those caught sooner and less painfully.
>
> So, what points would you emphasize to each (manager, programmers) to
> make the Ada sale?  I've read a lot of the advocacy and I think I have
> a fair handle on it, but I'd still like other viewpoints, and perhaps
> even examples of such a successful switch.
>
> In the end, it seems, it all comes down to money.  Money saved in
> greater productivity and less debugging, money saved in lower
> liability and maintenance, money gained from satisfied customers who
> get a robust product, and maybe even money saved in having programmers
> who have a more powerful and safer tool at their disposal.
>
> I know that language choice is not the be-all-and-end-all of better
> software, but I'm convinced it's a key component, and I'm also
> convinced that the sooner we leave C and its baggage behind the better
> we can become.

Perhaps subsumed under 'maintenance' but it may be worth mentioning
separately the portability of Ada across different hardware in
comparison to C.  Ada is undoubtedly more portable as there is better
separation between hardware and software aspects but I don't have any
real-world examples to cite.  Have there been any issues porting the
existing C?

Having a lower barrier to re-host on different hardware would offer
greater flexibility, but perhaps this is more of a long term advantage
associated with hardware obsolescence that would tend to get
overlooked.  Talking about different hardware also raises the question
of compiler availability.  Of course, if there's no prospect of
changing hardware, then it's probably not worth mentioning.

Phil