Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics

["Richard Riehle" <adaworks@earthlink.net>]

"I R T" <rambam@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:hdtlgx6r.fsf@pop-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> The very fact that noone has bothered to write a commercial OS in Ada is
> itself a datapoint.

I wonder what datapoint you might be suggesting.

Writing a commercial database is a fairly large effort.  The fact that few
have
bothered writing operating systems that compete with Microsoft is a
datapoint?

In fact, several of the Run-time Environments that support Ada are written
in
Ada.  These are mini-OS's targeted to support of bare-board computers.
Further, there have been experimental OS's written in Ada, but those who
have written them are not supported by the financial resources necessary
to turn them into commercial products.

We did miss an opportunity back when the DoD was a principle sponsor
of the language.   If someone had thought to port the idea of P-Code
(now Java bytecode) to Ada so that resulting code would be portable
across any system, we might have a different story today.

If the compiler publishers had a better sense of how to commericialize
Ada instead of raising the cost per seat to a level that could only be
endured by a captive client such as the DoD, Ada might have had
better commercial success and people might have used it for more
applications, including operating system development.   Instead, the
developers found it more convenient to use a readily available language
that required no up-front investment, C, as a the development tool.
Can anyone blame them?

The more I look back at the failure of Ada to capture the interest
of the computer industry, the more I realize that, as Jeff Dunteman
once noted, the compiler publishers deliberately priced it out of
reach of the average commercial developer.   Further, they identified
it within their own organizations as the domain of "federal systems"
sales force, and that sales force had no inclination to push for
commercial sales since they were not likely to get the good commissions
for their efforts.

Ada 95, and GNAT, changed much of that.   Notice that now there are
far fewer Ada compiler publishers than before.   There are certainly no
"checkbox" compilers.   Companies such as Green Hills, DDC-I, and
ACT take their Ada responsibilties seriously, and they continue to
provide good products.   Some others now seem to see Ada as a
necessary evil rather than a market opportunity.  One almost gets
the feeling that some of those other companies would not be unhappy
if Ada simply vanished so they would not have to be bothered by it.

Dissenting views from any compiler publishers?

Richard Riehle

                          OOOOOOPS!  Sorry. I forgot to give kudos to Irvine
                                                    Compiler for hanging in
there too.
>