Re: How come Ada isn't more popular?

[Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

<adaworks@sbcglobal.net> writes:

> As I have often noted in this forum and elsewhere, I often wonder why someone
> who chooses to develop software in a language that is error-prone would expect
> a software system that is error-free.   

But I think that "they" don't expect a software system that is error
free. Generally the probability of errors is just one factor
contributing to the overall cost of a project. Other factors are the
cost of having to re-implement already existing libraries or software,
the cost of having to maintain teams for more than one language,
support fees for tools, the cost of not having some tools for this
language, the cost of hiring for "unusual" languages, the cost of not
having a garbage collection etc.

I think that it is this point of view that makes decisions against Ada
for some other language at least understandable, even if you would
have decided differently. 

As I have said repeatedly (probably in in those posts lost to the
black hole) the decision against Ada is perhaps something you can
lament, but to call it irrational is, IMHO, irrational. One has to
understand the motives of other peoples decision to be able to
influence them. Of course calling them just ill-informed (as some post
in this thread do, not necessarily yours) helps to feel secure in ones
own position, but it doesn't help towards changing other peoples
position.

> Although a language, by itself, cannot guarantee a system that is
> error-free, one would expect an outcome that requires less debugging
> time and would have fewer defects than with a language that is
> error-prone.

Language is only one factor from many that influence the "bug" rate in
the final product. The bug rate on the other side is only one if many
factors that make up the overall cost.

I'm not surprised that "error proneness" doesn't prove to be the final
decisive argument in the favor of some language in all not even in the
majority of cases. 

It is just the economy of software development and the customers
priorities 

   (hello you people here using Word -- why don't you use TeX which
   _definitely_ has less bugs? -- see what I mean?)

which decide on
which kind of development is finally paid for. See the state of Ada as
a summary of the state of demand by the market for certain software
attributes.


> While C++ may have some capabilities not found in other languages, it is still
> a poor choice for software where dependability is important.   

Exactly: "Where dependability is important". Which is not in consumer
software, most embedded software (who cares if MP3 players or mobiles
crashes now and than) etc. 


> It is not a language well-suited to safety-critical software.  On
> the other hand, I am impressed with a lot of the design elements of
> C#.  It still fall short of being ideal for safety-critical
> software, but it is an improvement over C++ and Java.

Exactly. Which will make it (as much as I'm sorry to condone anything
Microsoft had their grubby hands in) probably one of the languages for
the future as far as consumer software, ticket vending machines, etc. 


Regards -- Markus


PS: You didn't, I think, answer my question, why you don't think Java is type safe ... ?