Re: What ada 83 compiler is *best*

[Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org>]

to.reply@read.my.sig (Rick Thorne) writes:

>> Of course, the computing world loves convergence to standards (C++,
>> Windows).  It's a good thing.
> 
> ...and you're saying that Ada isn't compliant to a standard, and that
> Ada hasn't tried to impose its standards on the rest of the known
> universe?  If so, you haven't read much about the intent of the
> language you seem to love so much!  I think one of the reasons Ada has
> failed so miserably in commercial US software development is precisely
> BECAUSE it is a standard the government has tried to bully on us.

I should have added this to my list of reasons Ada isn't as popular as C++:

6)  The mandate.

I don't think the government was trying to "bully us" with the mandate,
they were just trying to manage the process.  But by mandating that Ada
be used for all systems --even those for which it wasn't necessarily
suitable-- they diluted the value of the language in those systems where
it really is an advantage to use Ada.

If you didn't like the policy, that's fine, but don't throw the baby out
with the bath-water.

At the time, the US DoD was the number one consumer of software, and
they had huge software costs that were only growing.  They had to get
their costs down (hundreds of languages were being used), and the
success rate up (many systems weren't even being delivered), and one way
they chose to do that was to commission the design of programming
language that the DoD could use as their standard language for building
real-time, embedded systems.

I think their intentions were good, but the management of that process
wasn't so good, and many programmers share the sentiment that the gov't
was trying to ram Ada down their throats.  

I don't blame you or any other programmer for being offended by this
policy, but don't blame Ada the language.  I myself used to scream "I
can do anything I need to in Fortran.  Why do I need Ada?"  But as I
started to use Ada over the next few weeks and months, I gradually began
to understand what the language was buying me.

Judge the language based on its own merits, separately from any opinion
you may have about how the DoD commissions software systems.  If the
gov't does something stupid, why blame Ada?

As someone pointed out a few years ago, Ada is a large woman, but once
you get your arms around her, you learn to really love her.

> C++/Java and others have considerable strengths of their own that make
> Ada unnecessary.  YES - unnecessary.  C++ and Java are perfect forms
> of protest.  They were developed by a handful of people (not a
> government bureaucracy like Ada was) AND they're incredible languages,
> whether or not YOU agree.

This is a common misconception.  The language was commissioned (paid
for) by the DoD, but it certainly wasn't designed by a "government
bureaucracy."  Ada was designed by Jean Ichbiah, then of Honeywell/Bull,
with input from a group of reviewers comprising members of industry and
academia.

But be careful not to construe this as "design by committee."  As John
Goodenough pointed out in HOPL-II, Jean vetoed committed decisions that
were 12-to-1 against him.

(Another story: I met Jean Sammet at this year's SIGAda conference, and
I asked her about her experience during the Ada design process.  She
told me that she disagreed with many of Ichbiah's decisions, and still
thinks he was wrong.)

So the moral of the story is, don't blame the gov't for putative errors
in the language.  If you want someone to blame, then blame Jean Ichbiah.
(But first, instead of a vague criticism like "the language is flawed,"
state explicitly what your specific problems with the language are.
Then we'll go over your list one item at a time.)