No call for Ada

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

> ------------------------------
> From: Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>
> Subject: Re: No call for Ada
>
> Well, I'm sure I could get my company to cough up a conference room for
> some kind of after-hours team sessions to facilitate some discussion. I
> don't know how much that would help.
[snip]
> but they wouldn't likely do that without seeing some market that would
justify
> the cost. It may end up a follow-on deal.

I don't know where you sent your email from (where your office is) but if it
isn't in Colorado then I'm guessing I would be missing the meetings.  Not
that I was invited.

> What I'd imagine doing would be to pull together an integrated kit that
> supported a GUI, Database and Class Library. That might not be an
> unachievable goal, but, as you observe, it would take some money.
> Volunteer software only gets so far and the public seems to like the
> "Professionalism" that comes with commercially supported products.

Considering all the pieces are already out there it is a highly achievable
goal.  All that really needs to be done is to have an "install" or "setup"
program to install the existing components.  I personally don't think
it would be such a bad idea to go through the existing components
and organize them/integrate them into one directory tree instead of
trying to work with the existing component directory layouts from
each individual component.

Who says we can't sell the final product?  As long as the source code
is freely available.  Look at RedHat Linux or FreeBSD.  They get from
$75 to ~$200 per box set.  Assuming of course that the license is the same.
Who's going to fund it initially?  Well I will, if $1.92 will cut it.


> Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> > Here's a idea to ease the adoption of Ada, and thus expand it, and thus
> > augment the percentage of reliable software in the world, and throw some
> > business our way along with it.
> >
> > The main result is a CD+book that constitutes the big package everyone
seems
> > to be expecting, containing every resource/library required to learn Ada
and
> > build a vast class of applications, and easy to install and use.

This is a great idea as well!!  I was aiming more for a box of software but
hey, if
it comes with a book instead then great.

As far as raising money, maybe we could sell some t-shirts to the
C/C++ community?  Better yet, we could develop some simple
little software programs for C/C++ developers and sell those.  OF
COURSE their writen in Ada, what else would bring some irony
to the situation?

------------------------------
From: "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>
Subject: Re: No call for Ada
[snip]
> In my view, nothing will change until governments (US, I do not believe in
> EU) understand that the current state of software development is a real
> threat, in a long term perspective, maybe, greater than terrorism.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> www.dmitry-kazakov.de

I'm not sure if your saying that governments need to verify all software
that goes to market, sort of like the FDA approves medications or
if your saying that the US companies are predominantly responsible
for the majority of bad software and it's the US governments fault.
Either way I agree that ALL software from EVERY country could
be writen better.  I disagree that it should be "approved" by some
government entity.  Imagine how much a copy of Windows would
cost then!!

Not only that but who approves the methods of approval?  What
your saying is like saying that the industry needs an unpenetrable
network firewall.  To your surprise, there is one!  Disconnect your
network from the Internet and then, your network is unpenetrable
from the Internet.  See how easy that was?


Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
720-273-6814
andrew@carroll-tech.net