Re: Ada and Automotive Industry

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Ken Tindall says

"Here we have a statement that so clearly shows the gulf between the
academics shouting about Ada, and the engineers in the real world.
Robert clearly thinks that there would not be a market for an Ada product
on an 8-bit device because the device is "too far backwards on the
technology curve". We have a contributor to this thread from Ford, saying
how the 68HC11, the '05, the '08 and so on are used extensively in
the automotive industry (and in many other industries). The 68HC08 is
a new device. The 68HC12 was launched last year. I think Motorola
would challenge the statement that they are far behind on the technology
curve. The automotive industry makes extensive use of 8-bit devices,
and this is going to continue for some years.

I happen to agree with Robert Dewar that there would be no market
for an Ada compiler for 8-bit devices. The code it generated wouldn't
fit in the available RAM and ROM, it would be too slow, and no-one would
buy it.
"


  Well that's puzzling, Ken Tindall says

    Only academics shouting about Ada think there is no market for
      an Ada targetted to 80bit devices

    Ken Tindall believes there is no market

  I guess Ken Tindall thinks he is a shouting academic :-)


  The point is that even if it were the case that 

     (a) you could make a nice Ada for an 8-bit processor
     (b) Ford would use it 

  that does NOT make a sufficient market to be worthwhile looking at
  for a compiler vendor (the fact that Ford needs millions of the gizmos
  does not translate into millions of compilers!!)

  What I mean by being too far behind the technology curve is that the
  kind of application for which people are likely to want to buy Ada
  technology are less and less likely to be using 8-bit chips, I can't
  for example even buy video games with such low end technology these
  days.

  Ten years ago, the situation was of course very different!

  By the way Ken, when I talk of whether I think there is a market for
  given technology, I am talking with my ACT hat on, and reacting to
  what customers seem interested in, hardly an academic interest!