Re: Ada Pricing & Quality ?? - Vendors

[rational.com!bonnie!rlk@uunet.uu.net (Robert Kitzberger)]

srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:

>Less than $900, and I want a variety of CASE capabilities thrown in.  I can
>get this for C++, and I get a CDROM thrown in with lots of goodies.  Further,
>I can save much development time by reusing the many large commercial and
>public domain C/C++ systems available - a factor in choosing a compiler.
>Besides, a Pentium-based system is close enough to a workstation, for PC
>prices to set the standard for workstation prices.

What you describe applies well to the PC development market, but doesn't
scale up the the large systems developed in Ada.

Visual C++ gives you admirable support for single-user development of
Windows based applications.  It provides a great way to speed
development of Windows-based user interfaces.

It does NOT provide features necessary for developing large,
truly mission-critical applications (now there's an overused
buzzterm -- "we support your mission-critical payroll applications!")

This requires a real workstation (e.g. Unix) along with remote file
systems, multiple user configuration management, etc.  PCs with kludgy
networking setups don't cut it, unless you enjoy pain (I know, I know,
NT will solve the world's Unix problems ;-).  It also requires a
development environment engineered from the ground up to _really_
support multiple user development, definition and enforcement of
subsystem interfaces, strong typing (IMHO), inherent portability, etc.

Until you convince the world to start developing 10,000,000-line
applications on PCs under Windows in Visual C++, there will be a
market for development environments that _are_ targetted to that
market.

It's not by accident that Apple develops its software on Unix
workstations rather than PCs/Macs, and it's not by accident that large
systems are developed on Unix systems, VAXes, R1000s, etc. rather
than PCs, often in Ada.

On the other hand, I concede a subset of your point: there don't
appear to be any Ada development systems for PC applications that
provide the capabilities of Visual C++.  But the world does not revolve
solely around Windows and PC applications (I find that to be one of the
biggest mistakes people make when they generalize about development
systems, second to the embedded/host dichotomy).

I also agree that there is enormous opportunity for adding some of the
features that make Visual C++ so appealing to Ada development systems.
There is also enormous opportunity for C and C++ development system
vendors to add features to their environments that support development
of huge projects by hundreds of developers (I've received personal
email on the development of OS/2 that indicate that they really needed
a Rational-like development system, _not_ Visual C++).

Personally, I agree with Robert Dewar and Mike Feldman that the lack
of bindings (especially standardized ones, de-facto or otherwise) to
existing operating systems and user interfaces are the single largest
impediment to more widespread use of Ada, not the lack of OO features,
for example.

>>Also, cross-compilers generally cost more than native compilers because the 
>>development cost has to be amortized over a smaller market.
>
>Given that 85% of the embedded market is done in C/C++, as measured by use
>and sales of products (for example, Intermetrics C compiler), Ada will never
>be competitive in the embedded market as C/C++ is amortized over a much
>larger market.

Greg, most of the embedded systems market is composed of 8-bit
microcontrollers (I'll need to ferret out an issue of Embedded Systems
Programming that contains their survey results).  This is clearly the
realm of C and assembly, not Ada.  If you looked at the market for
large embedded systems, which is a small slice of the market compared
to 8-bit microcontrollers, you'd see mainly Ada and some
C/lint/RCS/cpp/make/xmkmf/imake systems.

>In general, as long as I can get Rational-like capabilities in C++ systems
>at PC prices, Ada will never be competitive.

I submit that you aren't getting Rational-like capabilities in
Visual C++; you're comparing apples and oranges.  

I don't mean to be hostile, and I'm certainly not speaking for Rational.

	.Bob.

--
Bob Kitzberger                          Internet:   rlk@rational.com
Rational, Grass Valley, CA              CompuServe: 70743,1550