Re: Ada used in General Aviation (GA) applications?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 12:30:44 GMT, Marin David Condic
<nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

>BTW: I don't think that Ada has much of a chance of gaining huge success 
>(by which I mean revenue) in trying to target small embedded computers. 
>It would cost a lot to do and the potential buyers don't buy millions of 
>compilers.

I believe you are wrong here. In the area we are working, each large
vendor of an embedded application is surrounded by a swarm of smaller
firms to which it outsource software development and testing. Each
satellite firm has the complete development tool chain. These tools
are very expensive. It is a very lucrative market. [Some tool chain
vendors just take GCC, build loader, add a pair windows and sell that
for many k$.]

>That, and they are enormously disinterested in Ada.

True. To get there one has to offer better tools, a better compiler
would be not enough. Present tools are very bad, but the problem is
that the marked is saturated and closed. People there are conservative
and arrogant. It is difficult to get there, even if you have a better
product.

>Better to 
>get some other market segment that might be easier to address and let it 
>spill over into embedded programming.

No. It would take too long. I am afraid that Ada is missing the
embedded programming market which in the foreseeable future will
become no less important than the conventional one.

--
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de