Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project?

[Gerd <GerdM.O@t-online.de>]

On 11 Mrz., 09:37, Stephen Leake <stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org>
wrote:
> Gerd <Gerd...@t-online.de> writes:
> > 2. Pricing for GNAT PRO would be to much for such a small development
> > team (I think they offer support for at leat 10 person teams). Our
> > customer will not pay more, only for the software to be written in
> > Ada.
>
> I don't understand this argument. Using Ada instead of C, I get easily a
> factor of 2 (I usually say 10, but let's be conservative) productivity.
>
> So you can use 2 people instead of 4, freeing up 2 for another project.

First you must have two more projects, otherwise the people will have
nothing to do.

BTW: Do you have any proof for the "factor of 2"?

Don't forget: software development is not only coding, but designing
and documentation, too.


> GNATPRO is around $25k per year.

This might be acceptable for a great company, specialised maybe in
aerospace. But - as I stated, we are a small engineering company. If
we could do one of ten projectes with Ada, spending 25$ per year would
be too much, to give us profit.


> What is the problem? I'm guessing you don't really believe the
> productivity factor.

Yes. Especally, the use of Ada for coding will not speed up the rest
of software lifecycle.


> > 3. Software development is not only done on Windows and Linux.
>
> Just out of curiosity, what development OS are you using? Or are you
> refering to the target OS?

You may believe it or not, but some of our customers (finance area)
will require us to develop on mainframe running z/OS (formerly known
as MVS). Of course this development is done using the customer
equipment (we don't have own mainframe).

And yes, there are also (very rare, but existing) projects to be done
on eComStation (OS/2).

Also yes, cross development for embedded targets is done on Windows.

And - the range of targets is wide, from bare board to OSEK and
CardOS. No VxWorks here.


> > 5. For a lot of projects not only a tool chain is needed, but a
> > "safety certified" tool chain is required.
>
> You seem to be implying that you can get a safety certified C toolchain
> for less than you would need to pay for GNATPRO.

Sure, for (MISRA-)C tool chains.


> will pay off (factor of 2 productivity).

Still missing a proof for this.