Re: Who's using Ada in industry?

[Michael Feldman <mfeldman@gwu.edu>]

Niklas Holsti wrote:
> Michael Feldman wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> After several years of inactivity with the Ada project list,
>> I've started to maintain it actively again.
> 
> Very good indeed.
> 
>> I don't want to pad the list
>> with tools, compilers, libraries, etc., but rather to respond
>> to the question "who is actually using Ada in industry?".
> 
> I suspect that this exclusion of the SW tool industry from the 
> definition of "industry" may focus the list on the traditional Ada 
> application areas -- military and aerospace -- and exclude small or 
> start-up Ada adopters in other areas. This could reinforce prejudice 
> against Ada in other areas and especially in the SW tools area.

Perhaps so, though the list contains items from enough other domains 
that I don't think anyone can say it's limited to defense and aerospace. 
Railroad signaling is a very important domain for the public and for 
Ada; unfortunately it's difficult to get information because that 
industry is, well, very secretive.
> 
> I understand that a vendor of Ada compilers may be suspected of bias if 
> the vendor chooses to write the compilers in Ada. But the same should 
> not happen when a C compiler, or a language-neutral tool, is written in 
> Ada. Moreover, I believe that the reputation of Java has been boosted by 
> the fact that many tools for Java development are written in Java. Why 
> should the same not be true for Ada? If SW tool projects were listed 
> under their own heading -- perhaps as the last group -- they should not 
> detract from the impact of the other projects on the list.

Done - see below.
> 
> I admit that I am biased, as my own project (and that of at least one 
> other company in the same area, that I know of) are SW tools and thus 
> apparently not wanted on the list. Perhaps only large, expensive 
> projects are wanted? In that case it would be clearer to say so.
> 
Niklas makes a good point, so let me explain a bit further. I'm a 
(now-retired) college professor with no personal connection at all to 
any of these projects, and CERTAINLY no interest in pushing big, 
expensive projects over small ones. I'm not a spokesman for any big 
industry!

I've been maintaining this project list -- off and on and off, now 
definitely on again -- for a number of years. During the years before 
that, and since, I've heard from friends in the industry that in order 
to promote Ada they needed to hear about applications -- "killer apps, 
if possible:-) -- in real, operating, systems.

They thought it was nice that this or that library or IDE or code 
analyzer was written in Ada, but these tools are "self-referential" in 
the sense that they are written by developers for developers. So I 
concluded that I shouldn't focus on tools but rather on fielded apps for 
people other than software developers.

That said, your suggestion to add a tool section to the list is a good 
one and I will do that. Niklas, please send me info on yours. Others, 
please help. I do think it sends a negative message to publish a 1-line 
list, so please excuse me if I wait a while before I publicly add this 
section, just to give it a chance to build up to a few good lines.

Also, please keep in mind the old adage: if you like what you see, tell 
your friends. If you have a complaint, tell *me*. I don't necessarily 
read c.l.a. every day, so it make take time before I read others' posts 
to it.

In the two days since I posted my call for contributions I've received 
at least a dozen e-mail responses. I'll post an updated list in a week 
or so, after I've had a chance to process everything.

Thanks for your help!

Mike