re: Why is ada dead?

re: Why is ada dead?

[Gautier Write-only-address]

>The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul 
>Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating the 
>benefits of the language than actually writing commercially visible 
>software .

In general the debating community is better at debating than the
writing community...

G.
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is ada dead?

[tyler spivey]

is ada dead?
is it only used in department of defense?
is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon?

Re: is ada dead?

[Lao Xiao Hai]

tyler spivey wrote:

> is ada dead?

Yes. It seems no one lives forever.  In the case of Ada,
Countess of Lovelace, she died sometime around 1854.

Richard Riehle

Re: is ada dead?

[Adrian Hoe]

Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3B460DA9.C2965042@ix.netcom.com>...
> tyler spivey wrote:
> 
> > is ada dead?
> 
> Yes. It seems no one lives forever.  In the case of Ada,
> Countess of Lovelace, she died sometime around 1854.
> 
> Richard Riehle



Ada is dead in Malaysia. One of UTM's (University of Technology
Malaysia) KL campus was teaching and promoting Ada with a lot of
confidence couple years ago when they were a joint-venture with
Thomson CSF. Recently, I found that they had deserted Ada and switch
to Java for the reason that there is no Ada market in Malaysia.
ANother reason came from one of the senior lecturer was that Ada was
too old. I told the senior lecturer I could not believe what he was
saying because they were so confident about Ada.

So, is Ada dead in Malaysia? I don't know how many Malaysians have
joint CLA, but I will say that Ada is not dead in Malaysia.

Reason? UTM's main campus in JB is teaching Ada in general and real
time programming and there are as many as 120 students right now, yes,
today!

Lexical Integration (M) Sdn Bhd, the company I work with, although not
as agressive as 4-5 years ago, still promoting Ada. Our R&D division
uses Ada for research projects. 100% of all works in Lexical are using
Ada. Lexical Integration will emerge as Ada authority in Malaysia in
no time to come and that's our ultimate goal!

Ada is a programming language appreciated by engineers who know the
benefits. Java is a programming language appreciated by people who
likes to read ads and listen to marketing persuasion. I do not intend
to flame Java. It is a language with its own benefits and strength.
This is what actually happened in Malaysia. People likes to follow the
newest trends.

In universities (Malaysian, Ok?), programming languages are taught not
because of teching the students of programming concepts, but for the
sake of market requirement. That's the most pathetic and irresponsible
decision.

Adrian
Just my 2 cents worth!

Re: is ada dead?

[James Rogers]

Adrian Hoe,

It is good to hear from an Ada user in Malaysia.

It is unfortunate that Malaysian Universities see themselves as sources
of training for technology fads. The story you present below tells me
that UTM is interested only in encouraging payments from students and
industry. It has no real interest in making Malaysia a premier software
education and development center.

The education I can imagine from UTM can be described using an old
phrase American immigrants used to describe the Platte River over
150 years ago: It is a mile wide and an inch deep. Another common
description was "Too thick to drink and too thin to plow." The first
saying indicates that the river is not nearly as impressive as it
may first appear. The second saying indicates that it has no
practical use.

I am amazed that the senior lecturer was unchallenged in his or her
statement about Ada being too old. I expect this is in comparison to
Java. This amounts to saying that a proven product is not as good as
an unproven product because the unproven product is newer. Such a
statement is pure nonesense. 

It is even more nonesensical when you realize that Java has very
few new language developments. It is simply a compilation of a lot
of language features from a lot of other languages. In fact, without
the standard Java API the language would be completely ignored.
It offers nothing new, and it offers all these old features with
very poor performance. 

I would have been tempted to ask the senior lecturer if he or she
was willing to fly in an airplane with avionics programmed in 
Java. 

Look at Java's thread model. It is seriously flawed. This is not just
my opinion. This is the opinion of the Java development team
themselves. The earliest Java thread model included methods stop()
and suspend(). After several years of use it was discovered that
those methods are so unsafe that they had to be deprecated in the
language. The use of each method would frequently result in 
deadlocks and race conditions. The major problem was not that those
methods were faulty, but that the thread model was designed such 
that those methods could not be properly fixed. The only option
left to the Java design team was to simply declare those methods
to be broken, and advise against their use.

Java tried one somewhat new idea for dealing with threads. That is
the concept of thread groups. The idea was that threads could be
associated with a group, allowing all the threads in a group to
be stopped or suspended at the same time. Now that the stop()
and suspend() methods are deprecated, there is no reason to use
thread groups. Thus, the one attempt at real invention in the
Java language was made redundant because the underlying thread
model was so poorly designed. 

Java was originally touted as the answer to client-side programming
in a networked environment using applets. Applets are java
applications running in a user's browser. For several years people
tried to make applets work. Some success was achieved. Then Java 2
was released, with its Java Foundation Classes including the Swing
gui components. Swing is supposed to be usable with applets as
well as regular applications. Unfortunately, Netscape and Internet
Explorer have chosen to ignore Sun's advice on HTML support for
Swing applets. Each has chosen its own approach to supporting
Swing, resulting in a most horrible nightmare of HTML code to
merely start a Swing applet. Even worse, there is no assurance that
Netscape and Internet Explorer will not change their own HTML
syntax to support Swing. The result is that Swing is essentially
unusable in applets. Most companies simply use dynamically created
HTML and CGI to perform client-side programming. Microsoft has
created Application Server Pages for this purpose. Sun followed up
with Java Server Pages.

Applets are simply another feature of Java found to be of little
practical use.

Java is an unstandardized language. Sun likes to call this a
de-facto standard. Sun has its own meaning for such a phrase.
It means that everyone is encouraged to use Java. The Java API
documentation is freely published on the web (even though the
API documentation contains some serious errors). Sun is free to
change the API documentation at any time. The thread example
above is a good example. Sun maintains complete control over
what Java is and is not.

Sun has started into formal international standardization of Java
no less than five times. Each time they have pulled out of the 
effort. It is not clear to me that Sun will ever cooperate with
a standardization of Java. 

Java is clearly not superior to Ada. Java is not even clearly
newer than Ada. Java is clearly more unstable and unsafe to use
than Ada.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is ada dead?

[Andrzej Lewandowski]

"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:3B475678.C582735D@worldnet.att.net...
> Adrian Hoe,
>
> Java is clearly not superior to Ada. Java is not even clearly
> newer than Ada. Java is clearly more unstable and unsafe to use
> than Ada.
>

But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada.

Who said this?... "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions". The process
of adapting programming language has very little technical component, it is
rather business and social process.

A.L.

Re: is ada dead?

[Michal Nowak]

On 01-07-07, at 17:41, Andrzej Lewandowski  wrote: 

>But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada.

And who is using it? I don't. Maybe except applets on www pages.
And you think it is good? Java was intended to be more OO-language than
C++, to help desingning good software. It is step forward in some parts,
but I think it can cause bad habits. Many my friends write in Java - they
turned into "Java-people". But only little percent of them writes good
code. In many cases Java code bacame more messy than C++ code. ???
Yes, garbage collector made them lazy. "I put it here or there, never
mind, garbage collector will do its job". They gaining bad habits. Java
can be one-way ticket. Switching back to other languages can be difficult
(I observed this on labs - many of them had big problems in learning Ada
and trobles in understaning it.)

-Mike

------------------------
Mike Nowak
mailto: vinnie@inetia.pl

Re: is ada dead?

[Andrzej Lewandowski]

"Michal Nowak" <vinnie@inetia.pl> wrote in message news:mailman.994589417.11908.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> On 01-07-07, at 17:41, Andrzej Lewandowski  wrote:
>
> >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada.
>
> And who is using it? I don't.

Your problem, your choice.

> Maybe except applets on www pages.
> And you think it is good? Java was intended to be more OO-language than
> C++, to help desingning good software. It is step forward in some parts,
> but I think it can cause bad habits. Many my friends write in Java - they
> turned into "Java-people". But only little percent of them writes good
> code. In many cases Java code bacame more messy than C++ code. ???
> Yes, garbage collector made them lazy. "I put it here or there, never
> mind, garbage collector will do its job". They gaining bad habits. Java
> can be one-way ticket. Switching back to other languages can be difficult
> (I observed this on labs - many of them had big problems in learning Ada
> and trobles in understaning it.)

I was thinking the same way when I was in the Academia. Now I am working for
industry. My company has good programmers, good designers and they are
writing good Java code. All these are not oxymorons. Good programmer will
write good program in any language, bad programmer will write bad program in
any language. have you ever seem C program written in Ada? You can find
some excellent examples in some book published long ago by Springer. By
the way, we have commercial system for logistics management that sells
pretty well. It is all in Java, over 300 KLOC.

Yes, Java has its problems, threading model is one of them. I made an attempt
to use Ada (JGNAT strictly speaking) to write selected modules. Unfortunately, the
cost of support was prohibitive. I am ready to pay for support, but the cost must
be in sync with the rest of industry.

Java threading model can be easily fixed. I am using CSP model, strictly speaking
JCSP implementation from the University of Kent. Great!

Switching to new language is business decision. Such transition costs a lot and must be
carefully justified. I really cannot find arguments to switch to Ada. For what?... No
programmers, tools in 6 digit range, vendors with unknown financial
future. Moreover, except of programmers we have QA specialists, implementation services,
maintenance service, etc. All these people should know the language to some extent. How it
would cost to replace 50 people? Or to retrain them? And for what? To have "better"
language?

A.L>

Re: is ada dead?

[James Rogers]

Andrzej Lewandowski wrote:
> 
> Switching to new language is business decision. Such transition costs a lot and must be
> carefully justified. I really cannot find arguments to switch to Ada. For what?... No
> programmers, tools in 6 digit range, vendors with unknown financial
> future. Moreover, except of programmers we have QA specialists, implementation services,
> maintenance service, etc. All these people should know the language to some extent. How it
> would cost to replace 50 people? Or to retrain them? And for what? To have "better"
> language?
> 

This is all true. At some point someone decided to take the risk to
switch to Java. That decision must have incurred all the financial
and technical risks detailed above. Why was that risk justified when
switching to Ada is not?

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is ada dead?

[Marin David Condic]

That's rather presuming that all business decisions are made on some sort of
rational basis. Figure that languages develop constituencies - Java got a
stron constituency from a lot of C/C++ programmers who found it to have
advantages, but wasn't too far from what they were used to. They had some
help from the marketing guys who sold them on how "cool" it was. The poor
sap who manages the organization has grown far from being able to keep up
with technical innovations, etc., and has to trust his staff to tell him
what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is
the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way.

IMHO, if we want to sell Ada, it has to be from that grass-roots level. Get
the programers in the trenches using it in some capacity and deciding that
they like it & it will start to percolate up to the "business decision"
level. Key to that is having the kinds of development tools that are found
for C++, Java, et alia. If a development kit was bundled up and put on
bookshelves in Frye's or CompUSA, etc. that might go a long way to
increasing awareness in the right crowd.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3B490751.38523577@worldnet.att.net...
>
>
> This is all true. At some point someone decided to take the risk to
> switch to Java. That decision must have incurred all the financial
> and technical risks detailed above. Why was that risk justified when
> switching to Ada is not?

Re: is ada dead?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9icg1p$kpi$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is
>the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way.
>
>IMHO, if we want to sell Ada, it has to be from that grass-roots level. Get

I see two possible ways to increase Ada's "hipness". One would be a massive
marketing campaign, like Sun did for Java. I don't think anyone in the Ada
community has that kind of dough to throw around.

The other is to start developing lots of "cool" stuff with it. *That*, I think
we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD
(http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking
debuggers are cool. :-)

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

re: Why is ada dead?

[raj]

On Mon, 09 Jul 2001 15:54:57 GMT, Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>
wrote:
>The other is to start developing lots of "cool" stuff with it. *That*, I think
>we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD
>(http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking
>debuggers are cool. :-)

The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul
Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating
the benefits of the language than actually writing commercially
visible software . 

Re: Why is ada dead?

[Stefan Skoglund]

raj wrote:
> The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul
> Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating
> the benefits of the language than actually writing commercially
> visible software .

The Ada system houses should really do the Ada Airlines PR
gimmick !!

They should also do the Ada railway gimmick to...
hmm, not good railways is seen by americans as being obsolete...
hmm, no american would probably believe what the SNCF did
a few days ago... (a special run between Calais and Marseille)

Re: Why is ada dead?

[James Rogers]

Stefan Skoglund wrote:
> 
> raj wrote:
> > The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul
> > Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating
> > the benefits of the language than actually writing commercially
> > visible software .
> 
> The Ada system houses should really do the Ada Airlines PR
> gimmick !!
> 
> They should also do the Ada railway gimmick to...
> hmm, not good railways is seen by americans as being obsolete...
> hmm, no american would probably believe what the SNCF did
> a few days ago... (a special run between Calais and Marseille)

Oh, you mean the trip did not take three days, with frequent stops
to allow freight the right of way, and to allow maintenance crews
to repair 100 year old rails?

Nope. No American would believe that. 

American railroads currently carry more traffic than ever before in
their history. The plain truth, however, is that only a tiny fraction
of that traffic is passenger. Almost all is freight.

Here in Colorado Springs, the rails are busy day and night with
freight traffic. The largest fraction of that is trains carrying
coal. Every day there are several trains of over two kilometers
length carrying nothing but coal from the coal mines of
Wyoming and Idaho.

Of course, we do have one little passenger train in our area.
That would be the train that travels to the top of Pike's Peak.
The equipment for that train was purchased from Switzerland
a long time ago. The track is steep enough to require a cog
rail system. The train route rises 8000 feet (2.4 Km) in about 
12 miles (19.3 km) to a final altitude of 14110 feet (4.3 Km).
This is far too steep for normal trains.

Some of that coal stops in Colorado Springs. We generate our
electricity from burning coal. We also provide all the power our
city needs from local power plants. We do this with negligable
air polution. Recently the American Lung Association declared that
Colorado Springs has the third cleanest air of all American
cities. As an example, on an average day I can clearly see 
mountains over 70 miles away. That is not bad for average air
quality. On a good day I can see mountains over 200 miles
away. Today I can only see about 70 miles, but we are currently
having thunderstorms.

I will be surprised if the US ever develops a train that can 
compete with the French TGV. In the West the population is too
sparse to support the cost. In the East the cost of acquiring the
right of way would be too expensive. Current rail lines could not
be converted because they contain too many sharp turns to support
high speed rail travel. 

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: Why is ada dead?

[Stefan Skoglund]

James Rogers wrote:
> I will be surprised if the US ever develops a train that can
> compete with the French TGV. In the West the population is too
> sparse to support the cost. In the East the cost of acquiring the
> right of way would be too expensive. Current rail lines could not
> be converted because they contain too many sharp turns to support
> high speed rail travel.

Ok i will numerate the areas of the US which i think has
potential:
Illinois (Chicago-St Louis, Chicago-Mpls, Chicago-Detroit)
Washingto-Boston (fixing a number of nasty curves along the corridor)
NorthWest (portland-vancouver)
Florida
California

The Acela train could be competitive in the East and also
California. And then we have the tilting TGV version.

The North-East corridor can be improved by eliminating a number
of nasty curves but it would mean investing maybe 1 bn dollar
while fighting the nimby's.

The problem is getting people onboard in sufficient numbers
and also US citites is usually much more decentralized than european
ones and they also usually has a much worser commuting system
(LA is prob the worst one)
Chicago is bad too due to the rapid expansion west into Illinois
farmlands.

Colorado could be interesting too.
Col Springs-Denver

A worse problem is US railways disbelief in electrification but
they have part-good reasons to dislike it.

Why is ada dead?

[raj]

On Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:45:12 -0400, "Marin David Condic"
<marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote:

>That's rather presuming that all business decisions are made on some sort of
>rational basis. Figure that languages develop constituencies - Java got a
>stron constituency from a lot of C/C++ programmers who found it to have
>advantages, but wasn't too far from what they were used to. They had some
>help from the marketing guys who sold them on how "cool" it was. The poor
>sap who manages the organization has grown far from being able to keep up
>with technical innovations, etc., and has to trust his staff to tell him
>what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is
>the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way.


I am now hearing of increasing numbers of programmers  who will only
take on jobs if they involve Java and JSP !
Their rationale is that they do not want to lose their skill set by
working in languages that are not commercially hot.

Re: Why is ada dead?

[James Rogers]

raj wrote:
> 
> I am now hearing of increasing numbers of programmers  who will only
> take on jobs if they involve Java and JSP !
> Their rationale is that they do not want to lose their skill set by
> working in languages that are not commercially hot.

Where will those programmers be when the next hot technology comes
along? What is wrong with the money available from languages that are
not at the top of the technology fad list? 

People who react to any kind of fad like this are riding the tip of
the whip. They are completely at the mercy of the decisions of other
unthinking people. They feel safe because they are surrounded by
lots of other lemmings. That does not actually make them safe when
the lemming heard starts hurtling over the cliff. 

I have always believed I was responsible for my own career. I am also
responsible for finding work that satisfies me. I cannot achieve any
level of control over my work if I do not actively choose the kind of
work I do, and the tools I use.

The mindset eager to follow fads is, IMHO, an indication of a very
insecure personality. Fad followers are continually looking for the
affirmation of others to improve their own self image. The continuing
search for the next fad is chaotic. It engenders psychotic reactions
against reason, stabiity, and even custom. In summary, it is a 
strong force against civilization and culture. It is an attempt to
find security in the ephemeral, stability in chaos, and satisfaction
in mindless action.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA