No call for Ada

["Andrew Carroll" <andrew@carroll-tech.net>]

Boy, my original post, "No call for Ada", has blown up and spread out like a
wildfire.
I think it was originally "No call for Ada?".

I'm no expert with Ada but I've been trying things out.  I wrote several
small programs in Ada.  Nothing to really see the benefit of the "package"
and maintenance features of Ada yet.  One thing I have noticed, after having
worked with Ada a little bit and going to other "systems" is that Ada IS
spread out.  You go get GTK for this, and RAPID for that, and GNAT, and
MGNAT, and AdaGIDE, and on and on.  I was so tired of downloading stuff and
"making" it that I just went to Visual Basic, even though I had only a
tutorial on VB from a friend and some old software.

It isn't that "Ada" was bad, or unproductive, it was all the work to get the
tools.  Using VB has to be the easiest development I have done.  All I
wanted was to make a little tool to organize my CRC Cards so I could look at
them and edit them without having to scroll through a Word doc or buy some
expensive UML product.  It took me all of 10 hours.  Almost the same amount
of time I spent downloading and "making" all the Ada tools.

I haven't given up on Ada and I still seek to us Ada because it fits the way
I want to work.  It's just amazing to me that there is no one entity to
organize all these parts.  Microsoft is the entity for Microsoft, Sun is for
Java, Borland is one for C++.  With Ada it is all scattered about and
there's no apparent group effort.  Whatever it is, it's not a centralized
effort.  At least I don't see a centralized effort.

Would anyone be interested in that?

Good software is definitely NOT doomed.  In fact, quite the contrary.
Here's a read for you:
http://www.ad-mkt-review.com/public_html/air/ai200401.html


Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
andrew@carroll-tech.net