Re: In praise of Ada Freeware

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <5ee5b646.0107291409.6538ad64@posting.google.com>, Robert Dewar
says...
>Take two possible scenarios ...
>
>1. You write something in Ada, and distribute the resulting binary
>as freeware (as previously noted in this thread, freeware typically
>refers to binaries distributed free). What possible value can this
>have in promoting Ada? None as far as I can see.

There might be some small value if you let it be known that it was written in
Ada. I find a shocking amount of people out there with rather bizzare ideas of
what can't be done using Ada. Hopefully widespread use of Ada software like GVD
will slowly reduce the ignorance and prejudice. 

But I still have to agree that its worlds better to provide sources for users to
actually play with. Most self-taught programmers started by tinkering with
existing code. This is also a good way to get experienced programmers (who may
need to tweek the code somewhat) exposed to Ada. The more Ada sources we make
available, the more new Ada programmers we will see. Hopefully in time some of
them will contribute back too. We really need to get some kind of snowball
effect going, and this is the best way I can see to do it. 

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