Re: What ada 83 compiler is *best*

[Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org>]

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

> 2) I've read many studies touting the productivity of Ada, and I have to
> say I think they're all a joke?  Why?  Think on your training as an
> engineer.  To properly conduct a comparative study like this, you need to
> set up the experiment under tightly controlled environments.  To conduct
> an Ada vs. C++ study, you need identical development environments,
> identical tools, and identical staff in order to proceed.  Additionally,
> you need people who AREN'T advocates of one side over the other analyzing
> the data.  Finally, you need to have ALL elements of the lifecycle
> identical.  My belief: if Ada developers ACTUALLY DO beat the C++ers in
> all areas (quality, development time, etc.), it's less because of the
> source code and much more because of the system engineering involved. 
> Most Ada organization (at least in the US) are government controlled in
> some way (go to a Lockheed-Martin CDR/PDR if you don't believe this), and
> the systems engineering is very tight.  The Ada people tend to get better
> requirements that the C++ by virtue of their organizational domains, and
> the design is usually less brittle for the same reasons.


Actually, that was very close to the conditions of the Zeigler study, in
which the same programmers wrote the same application in both Ada and C.

No, Ada is not going to solve the software crisis.  It's only a
programming language, just one more tool in a programmer's tool-box.