Re: C# new features (v.7)

["Alejandro R. Mosteo" <alejandro@mosteo.com>]

On 14/12/16 20:52, Wesley Pan wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 8:59:55 AM UTC-8, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>> Many "modern" languages are adding "new" features, which are
>> allready in Ada for 10's of years, Hummm.... May be Ada
>> needs a better marketing department :)
>>
>> --Nasser
>
> What Ada really needs is to be used in fancy/cool/fun applications (e.g. games). Better marketing for the same old arguments of safety critical software, reduced development/maintenance cost, software integrity, etc (which are ALL still very important and worth promoting) doesn't capture the interest of the younger generation of software developers. It just turns them away, if not put them to sleep. (Projects like Gnoga are definitely a good start..)
>
> I have no doubt that Ada's exposure to the masses would have been greatly helped if people could make iOS apps with Ada when iPhones first became popular. Still no iOS apps in Ada (as far as I know)... =( Yes, you can make Android apps, but are there any that will make the general mass go "Wow!". Also, iOS is more popular...
>
> I REALLY wish I could be more proactive on this topic, but life responsibilities and reality continue to prevent me from allocating enough time to contribute anything to the Ada community...Maybe one day? Sigh...for now, I am stuck using an inferior one letter named language in a company full of anti-Ada software engineers...='(
>

I don't think any amount of cool apps can win people over the obvious 
short-term advantages of trendy languages. First, it is much 
faster/simpler to get something going in one of the dynamic, 
garbage-collected languages. Ada instead greets newbies with 
fixed-length strings. Second, even with Ada on the lead on most 
engineering-desirable properties, still has a syntax that is too 
clunky/carries too much old baggage for people used to "fancy" new 
languages and not interested in solid engineering. And I'm not referring 
to verbosity: I mean the inconsistent dot notation, syntax differences 
for regular/tagged/synchronized types, the complex reference return 
"types" via aspects with auxiliary types, the hindrance of 
definite/indefinite types (see the standard Containers with everything 
duplicated, or (albeit unrelated) Strings with /triple/ versions, that 
has to hurt any programmer's good taste). Throw in limitedness for good 
measure.

Now, I know there are reasons for those, and even so I resent some of 
them to some extent. In the end, as has been said in this group in the 
past, I think people interested in the areas where Ada still shines can 
learn to love it, whereas the main lot are only interested in doing 
whatever is cool now as fast and if needed be as buggily as possible. 
That's why I think that saying that Ada make planes/satellites fly will 
do more for the realistic potential audience than any cool app.

Cheers,
Alex