Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered?

[gwinn@res.ray.com (Joe Gwinn)]

In article <4ppb89$gbq@gde.GDEsystems.COM>, Michael Levasseur
<levass@gdesystems.com> wrote:

> Theodore E. Dennison wrote:
> 
> > I have recently been directly involved in a DoD effort using large
> > amounts of COTS hardware and software, and interfacing Ada to it has
> > literally been the LEAST of our problems. Writing Ada bindings, even
> > high level ones, is really not all that difficult for an experienced
> > Ada developer. There are even some tools available to do it for you.
> > Getting COTS hardware/software combinations that will work
> > together, now THAT has been a nightmare!
> 
> Have you been building Ada bindings to C++? I've built plenty of
> binding to C source code, i.e. VxWorks. I don't know of a way to
> bind to C++ objects or C++ methods.

For mixed-language developments, covering Ada plus C and/or fortran for
instance, I would suggest people consider Green Hills, who I have not
heard mentioned in these discussions.  They have done quite well in our
evaluations, although no selection decision has been made yet.  

With COTS and NDI, and integration with various GUIs and operating
systems, I suspect that many current and future systems will be of
necessity mixed-language at least in the necessary-but-boring
underpinnings.


> > I have seen neither of these. I suppose it depends on your
> > definition of "credible". The major players, Alsys and Rational seem
> > to be getting stonger than ever. And the last few months have seen
> > the emergence of ACT.
> 
> Well one of the companies you sight "Alsys" no longer exists. They 
> are part of "Telesoft"... Oh no now both "Alsys" and "Telesoft" no longer
> exist they're "Thomson". Well there's "Verdix" oh wait that's part of
> "Rational". From conversations with "Rational" what they're working
> on is their C++ compiler. My information comes from the list of
> validated compilers. It is clear that the number of Ada compiler
> venders have been shrinking. There aren't alot of companies entering
> the Ada compiler market. There is also some fallout from the TI
> aquisition of Tartan. I'm fairly sure that the product line of
> Tartan will be shrank.

For large-scale use, only a few vendors survive, and consolidations will
likely continue.  The Ada market is clearly shrinking.  I submit the only
metric that counts is aggregate revenue to the Ada compiler and tool
vendors, as the rate of further development of Ada depends on the size of
their food supply.  I don't have the revenue figures, but I bet someone on
this newsgroup does, and ask that the figures from 1983 to present be
posted.


> > In any event, you can now get an Ada compile for FREE.
> 
> Yes, but do you know of any major DoD projects that are be developed
> using GNAT? When you buy a FREE compiler you get what you pay for.

I would comment that I have seen large ATC projects use Gnu C as their
main language, with some success, so it isn't obvious that one could not
use GNAT.  However, Gnu C is a great deal older and morermature then GNAT,
and has better support in general, simply because of its ten to a hundred
times larger user base.


> Remember what the "Ada Mandate" was created to do. It was created to
> reduce the DoD software maintanence of over 200 langauges down to
> just one. The commercial world has now paired the major languages
> down to a handfull. It is now time to drop the Ada Mandate! If
> Ada is as strong as everyone says, clearly it will thrive and survive.
> I personnally believe that if that "Ada Mandate" was removed,
> Ada would take it's place in history like Jovial, Pascal, and Atlas...

My experience has been that management attempts to dictate technical
decisions based on techno-political correctness usually results in severe
resistance -- the doers know from experience that the managers will be
long gone onto yet another techno-political fad while the doers are still
struggling to recover from the last one.  So, the doers judge it better to
stop the fad at the door.  

The managers fear to directly make the technical decision themselves,
because they sense that they will end up wearing it like an albatross when
it fails.  So, they badger the doers in the hope that they will "accept
the challenge".

Joe Gwinn