Re: How come Ada isn't more popular?

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

Cesar Rabak <csrabak@yahoo.com.br> writes:

> Markus E Leypold escreveu:
>> Cesar Rabak <csrabak@yahoo.com.br> writes:
>>
>>> present beliefs in the SW industry are that the process (CMM sense) is
>>> what makes SW more reliable or not.
>> Well, that is not completely wrong, you know.
>
> Yes I know!
>
>> Though usually in
>> practice are code reviews are rarely done, despite the fact that they
>> are known to be the best instrument for creating code of high quality.
>>
>>> Upper management is used to navigate in the muddy waters of non
>>> perfect systems: unreliable OSs, virus/worm/trojan threats, so coping
>>> with a 'popular' language is part of the (usual) business.
>> Which just means they recognize the value of the "things that already
>> exist" oas opposed to "the things that would have yet to be
>> written". A wise attidute indeed.
>
> My only issue with this is the lack of a quality metric to ascertain
> the adequateness of the 'thints that already exist'.

This is not a question of "quality". It's only a question of "How much
money do I have top spent to recreate those already existing things?"
(Cost C1).

If I'm not going to do that the other question I have to answer (when
shifting to another language / tool set or process) is "How much money
do I have to spent integrate the existing things (process, tools,
code) with the new process / tools /code" (Cost C2)?

Quality only does come in here as C3: The _monetary_ costs (bugs,
maintenance, outright errors) avoided in future by creating better
"things" instead of the existing ones.

Either C1-C3 or C1-C2 is actually a suitable first measure of the
_value_ of the "existing things".

Quality, I insist, has only value as a factor in avoid expensive
failures of the system/programs in the future.  So the value of
quality does depend on context and it's this consideration that is too
often missing from those language advocacy discussions.


>>> Another question we tend to forget about C is the formidable ecosystem
>>> that exists to help companies to get right with lint-like tools,
>>> memory checkers, etc.
>> Exactly my point. This mitigates the "C is utter s***" judgment a
>> bit.
>>
>
> I think so, too, and for the worse (at least for me when I try to use
> Ada technology) one can even hear that "...in C the use of these tools
> and their expenditure is at users will...whereas...".


Yes. But the user's will is exactly what the development process
should be controlling. If we've gone as far as admitting that a proper
development process is necessary for a high quality of the final
product, we can as well go farther and compare not the languages per
se but the languages together with their tools and libraries. In my
opinion that will bring us much nearer to an answer to the question
"Why is Ada not more popular?".

>
> [snipped]
>
>>> Food for thought:
>>>
>>> Let's see, if we pick a recent project (Next-Generation James Webb
>>> Space Telescope) what would be the proposed language by IBM?
>> Perhaps mot C#. What do you suggest?
>
> I don't have a clue, but even in the site from Rational (where there
> is mention to other IBM products) there is not a word about Ada...

Well ...

Regards -- Markus