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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,11414a19b0e4a97a X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!k39g2000yqd.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Phil Clayton Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Advice on selling Ada to a C shop Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:06:51 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <101bf8f3-b823-45ee-9afd-40cbafb4b7a9@t26g2000prt.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 91.110.167.231 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1277230013 16624 127.0.0.1 (22 Jun 2010 18:06:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:06:53 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: k39g2000yqd.googlegroups.com; posting-host=91.110.167.231; posting-account=v7gx3AoAAABfjb9m5b7l_Lt2KVEgQBIe User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009102704 Fedora/3.0.15-1.fc10 Firefox/3.0.15,gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:12841 Date: 2010-06-22T11:06:51-07:00 List-Id: On Jun 20, 12:01=A0am, use...@scriptoriumdesigns.com wrote: > I may have the opportunity to pitch Ada for use in some new projects > (industrial equipment) at work. =A0The 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. =A0The head of engineering (who > is not a software guy) MAY be open to trying Ada if presented with a > compelling case. =A0The programmers are another question - they may > resist or they may be intrigued by some of Ada's features e.g. > concurrency. =A0They 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? =A0I'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. =A0Money 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