Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Mr. Kenneth Rowe]

Has anyone taken a stab at including Ada9X features into their current
Ada courses?  Does "introducing Ada9X" look like it will be helpful?

Ken.

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Michael Feldman]

In article <1r3ngeINN4mv@umbc7.umbc.edu> rowe@umbc.edu (Mr. Kenneth Rowe) write
s:
>Has anyone taken a stab at including Ada9X features into their current
>Ada courses?  Does "introducing Ada9X" look like it will be helpful?
>
In my comparative concurrency course, i just took the students through
2 evenings of Barnes' "Introducing Ada9X" and some discussion taken
from the Realtime Annex.

This little pub;ication looks pretty good, at least for students
who are already familiar with Ada. It would be more helpful to _me_
if I could get it in machine-readable form so I could make vu-graphs
directly. This has been promised but I don;t think it's been delivered.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"The most important thing is to be sincere, 
and once you've learned how to fake that, you've got it made." 
-- old show-business adage
------------------------------------------------------------------------

re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[SAHARBAUGH]

Ken Rowe asks:
Has anyone taken a stab at including Ada9X features into their current
Ada courses?  Does "introducing Ada9X" look like it will be helpful?

Ken.
---------------------
Yes, we are including it in an Ada course to be given
several times this summer. We plan to tell them
about Ada 9X
programming in Ada 83 in anticipation of Ada 9X
designing to utilize Ada 9X
transitioning to Ada 9X (re-tooling, re-training etc)

Will it be helpful?  I'll know more about that after
I receive a list of students, their backgrounds and
planned post-training assignments.  My cynical side
says that maybe the most help will be that it will look
good on their resume.

The 9X stuff will be lecture only (no lab).  That reminds
me of teaching Ada in the early 80's before DIGITAL had
an Ada compiler. [yes, i recall there was Ada-Ed but
VAX system administrators wouldn't let me use it for labs
because of the cpu looading]  We have RR's beta 9X compiler
so we can machine check some of the presentation material.
]

I'll post again as things progress.

sam harbaugh
saharbaugh@roo.fit.edu

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Aditya M. Jani]

Hi, I had posted a message regarding a course in Ada at IIT Chicago
a few days back.
This course does incorporate Ada9x and Object Oriented Programming

Hope this helps.

--Aditya JANI

I am appending the announcement to this message.
 
   
*************Course Announcement******************

CS 495  SAFETY-CRITICAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING WITH ADA

Who should attend?  Software students and practitioners with at 
                    least one year programming experience.

In this course you will learn to:

*  Use Ada, the language being adopted world-wide to implement
   the most difficult software systems.

*  Use Ada programming features that help NASA, the FAA and the 
   military develop software for systems that can't afford
   surprise behavior.

*  Use Ada programming features that help one of the world's 
   largest telephone companies to develop systems that work
   better and cost less.

*  Avoid the three technical problems facing new Ada users.

*  Use Ada 9X with Object Oriented Analysis and Design methods.

*  Double your personal programming productivity--and then
   double it again with more practice.

*  Understand how to change your approach when you are a member
of a very large software engineering team.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------

When:     IIT Summer Session, Fridays, 3:10 to 6:50 PM.

Where:    Rice Campus. Also on IITV for other locations.

Credit:   Two credit hours. (Discuss with contacts listed below).

Text:     "Software Engineering With Ada,"  Grady Booch

Instr:    Fred Francl managed real-time, mission-critical software
          engineering development for over fifteen years. He led
          several government studies on the effectiveness of Ada
          for this type of software development. He served for
          three years as a Distinguished Reviewer for an Ada Joint
          Program Office team. Mr. Francl led the Real-Time
          Session of a national Ada conference. He currently 
          consults with the Federal Aviation Administration on Ada
          issues that arise in the modernization of the U.S. 
          En Route Navigation System. He chairs the Chicago Chapter
          of the ACM Special Interest Group on Ada (SIGAda).

Contacts: Dr. Tzilla Elrad (312)567-5142 CSELRAD@minna.acc.iit.edu
          Mr. Fred Francl  (708)627-8098 ffrancl@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu





The location:
                 Daniel, F and Ada, L Rice Campus
                 201 E. Loop road,
                 Wheaton Illinois 60187
                 U.S.A.

IIT/V is a Television network at IIT Chicago, The course would also be
transmitted live at the main campus (Chicago, Illinois) and other locations.
                 
For more information contact:
     Dr. Tzilla Elrad  ...(312) 5675142  email: cselrad@minna.acc.iit.edu
     Mr. Fred Francl   ...(708) 6278098  email: ffrancl@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu


                

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[enterpoop.mit.edu!ai-lab!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!ogicse!netnews.nwnet.net!new]

In article <1993Apr24.010528.12631@iitmax.iit.edu> thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu (Adit
ya M. Jani) writes:

>*  Avoid the three technical problems facing new Ada users.

I hope that one of these three problems is correctly recognized to be
the non-existence of a powerful and flexible Ada implementation for the
IBM-PC that is in seriously competitive with corresponding C/C++ offerings
in any of the realms of price, optimization, resource hunger, interface
capability, or support.

--ben

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Peter Hermann]

In article <1993Apr24.010528.12631@iitmax.iit.edu> thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu (Adit
ya M. Jani) writes:
>*  Avoid the three technical problems facing new Ada users.

please explain to all of us, thank you.

Regards,

Peter Hermann

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!msuinfo!uchinews!iit]

>*  Avoid the three technical problems facing new Ada users.

<I hope that one of these three problems is correctly recognized to be
<the non-existence of a powerful and flexible Ada implementation for the
<IBM-PC that is in seriously competitive with corresponding C/C++ offerings
<in any of the realms of price, optimization, resource hunger, interface
<capability, or support.

<--ben


>*  Avoid the three technical problems facing new Ada users.

<please explain to all of us, thank you.

<Regards,

<Peter Hermann



 I am forwarding the reply by Mr Fred Francl, who would be teaching
 the Ada course at IIT Chicago this summer.
 I will forward any replies to him.
---------------------
forwarded message
--------------------- 


Compiler problems have plagued Ada since at least 1984, when our group
used to measure compile time in fractions of a day. We used the now 
infamous ALS on a VAX 780. But as Paulkovich points out in the May/June
Ada Letters, C/C++ compilers will always be smaller and cheaper because 
they do so much less.

My concerns are very narrow for the purposes of my IIT Ada course. For 
academia, the GNU Ada/Ed translater being released this year is good 
enough. And its price (free) is certainly all right. It won't do you
much good on typical industry problems, or even advanced Ada courses.
But my focus is on introductory Ada work in defining the three technical 
problems FOR NEW ADA USERS.

I readily admit that any two Ada instructors will define wildly different
sets of "three technical problems." To try to at least stay in good company
I have taken two from Michael Feldman (Communications of the ACM, Nov 92, 
page 58). He cites "excessive reliance on global variables" and "deeply
nested procedures" as "unfortunate habits...learned from the monolithic
style of Pascal." As a software manager and, more recently, as a consultant
I have seen these problems over and over in the work of new Ada programmers.
The other big problem I have seen is "AdaTRAN."  To me these are the major 
defects in the products of new Ada programmers who are still treating Ada
as "just another programming language."

Your top three candidates are undoubtedly different because we have had
different experiences. If you have the time I would appreciate hearing 
what yours are. 

Sincerely,

Fred Francl

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Gregory Aharonian]

>Compiler problems have plagued Ada since at least 1984, when our group
>used to measure compile time in fractions of a day. We used the now 
>infamous ALS on a VAX 780. But as Paulkovich points out in the May/June
>Ada Letters, C/C++ compilers will always be smaller and cheaper because 
>they do so much less.

   I have not seen Paulkovich's article, but I must disagree, having used
many Ada compilers and many C/C++ compilers.  The current C/C++ compiler
systems probably offer more capability than any Ada system.  Not only do
they have better optimizations and compile speeds, but in areas like
type checking across modules, which Ada does naturally, most compilers
now also do (assuming you use #include files with procedural declaration).
Things Ada also do naturally (like tasking) are more than amply handled
with a variety of C/C++ object libraries that allows people to pick and
choose the tasking style they want, instead of one fixed approach blasted
into the language.
    Recently, C/C++ compilers have been including library browsers and
other neat CASE features, all for the same price.  And the interfaces to
most C/C++ compilers, especially unders Windows, are more user friendly
than the Ada compilers.

    The reason that Ada compilers cost more is simply because the Ada
compiler vendors have a captive market and can charge more simply because
there is no competition for them.  The Ada Mandate is a gross market
distortion that allows these inflated prices to continue.  Remove the
Mandate and two things will happen: first, the Ada vendors will have to
drastically lower their prices to be competitive with the C/C++ vendors.
Second, since the vendors are used to competition within the defense
world, between competition with C/C++ vendors and loss of sales to DoD
projects now using C/C++, most of the vendors will go out of the Ada
business.

    The vendors have used every excuse in the book to explain away the
fact why their prices are so high compared to industry standards, except
for the reason that neither Ada nor their compilers are competitive.
Just look how people are spending their own money.

Greg Aharonian
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Michael Feldman]

OK, folks! Get ready for me to agree with Greg again. Inflammatory stuff
follows in my part of the post. Be warned!

In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr29095738@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
[stuff deleted]

>    The reason that Ada compilers cost more is simply because the Ada
>compiler vendors have a captive market and can charge more simply because
>there is no competition for them.  The Ada Mandate is a gross market
>distortion that allows these inflated prices to continue.  Remove the
>Mandate and two things will happen: first, the Ada vendors will have to
>drastically lower their prices to be competitive with the C/C++ vendors.
>Second, since the vendors are used to competition within the defense
>world, between competition with C/C++ vendors and loss of sales to DoD
>projects now using C/C++, most of the vendors will go out of the Ada
>business.
>
>    The vendors have used every excuse in the book to explain away the
>fact why their prices are so high compared to industry standards, except
>for the reason that neither Ada nor their compilers are competitive.
>Just look how people are spending their own money.
>
After 10 years of dealing with Ada vendors, I finally spoke to a sales/
marketing rep from a respectable Ada compiler house (no, I will NOT name
the person or company, not even privately), who finally admitted to me just 
what Greg pointed out above. The vendors have indeed used every excuse in
the book to explain away their obscenely high prices, starting with
"validation is expensive" to "we're a small company with limited resources."

This person volunteered to me in a phone conversation just yesterday that
my longtime assertion (and Greg's) is true: the prices are high because
the mandate creates a captive market. He came very close to saying that
the Ada companies are not marketing much outside the DoD because they 
know their prices are unaffordably high. Keep in mind that a company
cannot sell to Uncle Sam for a higher price than that charged in the
marketplace.

The upshot seems to be that vendors are afraid to drop their prices
and sell aggressively because if it doesn't work - if Ada does not 
become a spectacular success - they will, by dropping their prices,
have lost the ability to gouge the taxpayers.

It matters not which company this person represented; suffice to say
that it was a real business-type person from a real Ada outfit. His
frustration and disgust with the situation came through fairly clearly.

The conversation started because this person had heard that I am
keeping a list of non-defense Ada projects, and wanted a copy. He sells
Ada products but has no e-mail account, so I'll send him a paper one.

Strangely, he asked me what my "charter" was to maintain such a list. I
told him that I was doing it on my own time and initiative simply
because nobody else was. He asked me whether the list was copyrighted
and how much I charged. I told him "no" and "nothing". He could
not conceive of anyone doing somethikng with Ada who's not out to
make a buck. I told him how ironic it is that I, a college professor
with no charter and no direct stake in Ada save a few bucks in book
royalties, was receiving calls and letters from _vendor_ folks looking
for _me_ to tell _them_ who's using Ada.

By the way: the company in question is - like most of the Ada companies -
hedging their bets by starting to develop C++ products. They are so
accustomed to the protected mandated market, and to our constant carping
about how rotten their products are (they're not really THAT bad!),
that it is inconceivable to them that their stuff could succeed in a
competitive market where competitive prices are charged.

Ada is truly a "dual use" technology. But you'd never guess it from
talking to Ada companies.

I've flamed enuf.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"The most important thing is to be sincere, 
and once you've learned how to fake that, you've got it made." 
-- old show-business adage
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Jonathan Schilling]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr29095738@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
>    The reason that Ada compilers cost more is simply because the Ada
>compiler vendors have a captive market and can charge more simply because
>there is no competition for them.  The Ada Mandate is a gross market
>distortion that allows these inflated prices to continue.  Remove the
>Mandate and two things will happen: first, the Ada vendors will have to
>drastically lower their prices to be competitive with the C/C++ vendors.
>Second, since the vendors are used to competition within the defense
>world, between competition with C/C++ vendors and loss of sales to DoD
>projects now using C/C++, most of the vendors will go out of the Ada
>business.
>
>    The vendors have used every excuse in the book to explain away the
>fact why their prices are so high compared to industry standards, except
>for the reason that neither Ada nor their compilers are competitive.
>Just look how people are spending their own money.

Not to get into the general argument about whether the existence of the
Ada market as a whole is due to lack of competition, it must be noted
that *within* the Ada market, there is definitely competition.  There are
a number of different Ada vendors, and for any given host[/target], there
are usually three or more Ada compiler products to choose from.  Having
worked for Ada compiler vendors for over eight years, I can attest that
this business is *very* competitive, and that if you don't put out a
competitive product, you suffer.        

As for prices *within* the Ada market, there are several different pricing
strategies around.  It is not always the lowest-cost vendors that do the
best; whether this is a because Ada customers are more concerned with
quality than cost, or this is a consequence of the funding and procurement
practices in the Ada world, I'm not sure.

-- 
Jonathan Schilling
DDC-I, Inc.
uunet!ddciiny!jls

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Michael Feldman]

In article <C6AuFs.GEr@ddciiny.UUCP> jls@ddciiny.UUCP (Jonathan Schilling) writ
es:
>
>Not to get into the general argument about whether the existence of the
>Ada market as a whole is due to lack of competition, it must be noted
>that *within* the Ada market, there is definitely competition.  There are
>a number of different Ada vendors, and for any given host[/target], there
>are usually three or more Ada compiler products to choose from.  Having
>worked for Ada compiler vendors for over eight years, I can attest that
>this business is *very* competitive, and that if you don't put out a
>competitive product, you suffer.        

I have no doubt that this is true. The relatively small number of (generally)
small Ada companies tear each other apart to win contracts. There is no
question that there is competition here. But the pie for whose slices the
companies are competing is not infinite, nor continuing to grow within
the mandated world; eventually it must saturate.
>
>As for prices *within* the Ada market, there are several different pricing
>strategies around.  It is not always the lowest-cost vendors that do the
>best; whether this is a because Ada customers are more concerned with
>quality than cost, or this is a consequence of the funding and procurement
>practices in the Ada world, I'm not sure.
>
Undoubtedly the DoD managers realize that the cost of a compiler is a
relatively trivial part of even a smallish project, so they can buy
perceived quality or performance instead of price. This is fine as far
as it goes, and is in fact a realization of the Ada dream that validation
would guarantee a relatively standard language with minimal "feature wars."

The trouble is that it does not go far enough. The Ada industry realizes
this, but from the perspective of those of us who promote Ada outside
the mandate - because it's a GOOD language, dammit - the industry is
using a disastrous, even cynical approach.

Instead of reorganizing to make Ada a dual-use technology that's just as
useful outside the DoD as inside, the Ada companies are keeping their Ada
prices too high to compete adequately with OTHER LANGUAGES. Instead of
building _Ada_ compilers and tools that can compete with industrial-strength
C++ and Fortran systems, Ada's supposed friends are competing with C++
by building _C++_ compilers and tools. Ask around, you'll see.

All of which leaves us Ada fans outside the DoD mandate essentially out in
the cold. I've thought for years that that's what they were doing to us;
what inspired my nasty post yesterday was that an Ada vendor finally admitted
it to me.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"The most important thing is to be sincere, 
and once you've learned how to fake that, you've got it made." 
-- old show-business adage
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Gregory Aharonian]

Mike,
	You gave away too much information.  I'll bet you a beer at
WadaS that the company you refer to that is gouging the taxpayers is
Rational.  My second guess would be Telesoft/Alsys.  We can payoff later
on.

Greg
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!darwi]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr30114716@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
>Mike,
>	You gave away too much information.  I'll bet you a beer at
>WadaS that the company you refer to that is gouging the taxpayers is
>Rational.  My second guess would be Telesoft/Alsys.  We can payoff later
>on.
>
It could well have been either of those. But you owe me a beer.

Mike

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Robert Dewar]

I must say I find Feldman's comment on Ada pricing naive. All this talk of
gouging tax payers reads well as rabble rousing to the gallery, but does it
really make sense?

The issue that faces an Ada company is where to price its products in a market
whose elasticity is not known, but which is suspected to be much less than 1
(i.e. halving prices will not as much as double sales), and of course in 
practice the elasticity must be much greater than 1 if halving the price is
to leave profits stable, let alone growing.

As you know, a fair number of people have lost a lot of money betting on the
Ada market. Now it may be that Ada companies have got the sums wrong, and that
they would make more money if they reduced prices.

However, when Mike says that "if an Ada company reduced prices and it didn't
work they would lose the ability to gouge the taxpayers" he has got it 
completely wrong. On the contrary, the penalty for such a misstep would almost
certainly be that the company would fail. 

As it is, several Ada companies have in effect failed (Alsys, Telesoft,
Systeam), and certainly no one is getting rich in the Ada business. In a 
situation where everyone is losing money, or at best not making much money,
it is rather absurd to make accusations of venality. One can accuse Ada
companies of making the wrong choices -- Mike has gone of on this thetorical
tact quite effectively in the past -- but it seems silly to accuse someone of
price gouging when they are losing money!

How elastic is the Ada market? If you really believe the elasticity is
greater than 1, and that hence it would benefit Ada companies to reduce
prices, then concentrate on that point, and save the accusatory approach
for a situation in which it is more appropriate!

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Michael Feldman]

This is gonna be long, so trash the article now if you wish. :-)

In article <dewar.736239358@schonberg> dewar@schonberg.NYU.EDU (Robert Dewar) w
rites:
>I must say I find Feldman's comment on Ada pricing naive. All this talk of
>gouging tax payers reads well as rabble rousing to the gallery, but does it
>really make sense?

Well, Robert, until my vendor contact admitted it, I thought it was just
rhetoric. But I was really taken aback. See below.
>
>The issue that faces an Ada company is where to price its products in a market
>whose elasticity is not known, but which is suspected to be much less than 1
>(i.e. halving prices will not as much as double sales), and of course in 
>practice the elasticity must be much greater than 1 if halving the price is
>to leave profits stable, let alone growing.

The box the vendors got themselves in was assuming _at the outset_ that
Ada would not be a dual-use technology, and setting prices assuming no
elasticity. Those of us who believed in Ada - as a general-purpose language
for the world - and kept trying to send this message to the vendors right
from the start - were mercilessly blown off. 

In 86 or so, when I first started asking vendors to use the universities 
as partners rather than customers, I was told - quite consistently by all 
of them - that they saw no use in hooking the students and teachers on Ada
because it would be 5 years before those students became decision-makers,
and they weren't sure they'd be around in 5 years. They had so little
confidence in the validity of Ada as a language, and in their own ability
to produce good products, that they were going for the short-term revenue
instead of the long-term growth. Some of us argued that this myopia would
guarantee that the Ada market - and they, by extension - would stay small.

The market is indeed small, as we know only too well. So are the companies.
The degree to which vendor myopia _caused_ our prophecy to come true is, of
course, open to speculation. But come true it has. And the vendors are
_still_ saying that they cannot afford to enter other markets aggressively.
And they are _still_ saying they can't afford to wait for my students
to graduate. See below.
>
>As you know, a fair number of people have lost a lot of money betting on the
>Ada market. Now it may be that Ada companies have got the sums wrong, and that
>they would make more money if they reduced prices.

_Just_ reducing prices won't work. Entering other markets aggressively - to
counter C++ - might. The vendors claim lack of resources. Where do they get
the resources to develop the C++ products into which they are diversifying?
If they don't have resources for both, then in effect a dollar spent on C++
is a dollar _not_ spent on Ada, which amounts to abandoning Ada.
See below.
>
>As it is, several Ada companies have in effect failed (Alsys, Telesoft,
>Systeam), and certainly no one is getting rich in the Ada business. In a 
>situation where everyone is losing money, or at best not making much money,
>it is rather absurd to make accusations of venality. One can accuse Ada
>companies of making the wrong choices -- Mike has gone of on this thetorical
>tact quite effectively in the past -- but it seems silly to accuse someone of
>price gouging when they are losing money!

I would not have made such an accusation had it not come directly from
a vendor person, who said (as exactly as I can recall) that because the
vendors are _prohibited_ from charging the commercial market less than
they charge Uncle Sam, they are keeping their prices high because they
know that if they lower them, they'll have to lower them for Uncle as
well. And they are afraid to do that. Nobody seems ready to even _try_ to
test the elasticity. Instead, they'll go off on new ventures into C++.

This is not my wild-eyed speculation, Robert; I was shocked to
hear it, but there it was - right from a vendor's mouth.
>
>How elastic is the Ada market? If you really believe the elasticity is
>greater than 1, and that hence it would benefit Ada companies to reduce
>prices, then concentrate on that point, and save the accusatory approach
>for a situation in which it is more appropriate!
>
Well, as I said, I didn't go off on this tirade idly; had I not heard it
straight from my source, I never would have mentioned it.

You may recall that a number of months ago Rich Pattis posted some of
IBM's commercial compiler prices for different RS-6000 AIX language processors.
Here they are again for reference:

       Ada   C++   Cobol  Fortran  Pascal
CPU
 D5   4010   918    1140      684
 E5   8020  1835    2285     1595    1370
 F5  16040  3675    4580     3195    2745
 G5  32090  7350    9170     6390    5495

These are from IBM, not a small Ada company. I put them on the screen
in a Tri-Ada 92 session, with the comment that it was not obvious to me
that the market for Cobol on RS-6000's was roughly 4 times the size of
that for Ada. I explained also that I was using IBM's prices right out
of their catalog, and that other Ada vendors' prices were similar.

I was subsequently excoriated (privately) by some friends at IBM, who
acknowledged that my numbers were correct, but said that I did IBM a 
disservice by not emphasizing that IBM's prices were no worse than other 
Ada vendors. They referred to the other Ada vendors as "the competition".
I asked them whether they perceived that the _other languages_ were
competition. They said yes, but their primary competitors were the
other Ada companies, and that IBM perceives its Ada market as almost
entirely governmental. So their prices, and everyone else's stay at
several times the price of the other languages.

The person who occasioned the original post was not (NOT!) from IBM,
but it's clear that IBM suffers from the same syndrome. There can be no
other reason for the prices to be so high except that the taxpayer will
pay them and nobody else will. Indeed, that is, in essence, what my
vendor contact was saying.

Venality, Robert? I did not use that word. I called it cynicism, and I am
inclined to stand by that characterization. Ada product prices amount to
a government subsidy. And that leaves the rest of us out in the cold,
because the prices cannot be lower in the unsubsidized market sector.

Sorry for going on about this, but I think I have my facts straight.
My long-time conjecture - which I never had the gall to state publicly -
was confirmed in a simple phone call the other day.

Mike Feldman

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Mark Bayern]

 
>In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr30114716@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregor
y Aharonian) writes:
>>
>>Mike,
>>      You gave away too much information.  I'll bet you a beer at
>>WadaS that the company you refer to that is gouging the taxpayers is
>>Rational.  My second guess would be Telesoft/Alsys.  We can payoff later
>>on.
>>
>It could well have been either of those. But you owe me a beer.
>
>Mike
>

Greg,

I can't be Alsys since we know that Tom E has an email account.

Of course, from what I've seen of various vendors pricing and
support policies (see some of my previous messages), I'd be
surprised to find _any_ Ada vendor who didn't have that attitude. 
Mike just found one who was willing to admit to it. 

Mark
 

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Mark Bayern]

 
>I must say I find Feldman's comment on Ada pricing naive. All this talk of
>gouging tax payers reads well as rabble rousing to the gallery, but does it
>really make sense?
>

Sure does -- and I speak as one who is attempting to use Ada in the
commercial world.   

>The issue that faces an Ada company is where to price its products in a market
>whose elasticity is not known, but which is suspected to be much less than 1
>(i.e. halving prices will not as much as double sales), and of course in 
>practice the elasticity must be much greater than 1 if halving the price is
>to leave profits stable, let alone growing.
>
>As you know, a fair number of people have lost a lot of money betting on the
>Ada market. Now it may be that Ada companies have got the sums wrong, and that
>they would make more money if they reduced prices.
>
>However, when Mike says that "if an Ada company reduced prices and it didn't
>work they would lose the ability to gouge the taxpayers" he has got it 
>completely wrong. On the contrary, the penalty for such a misstep would almost
>certainly be that the company would fail. 
>

Completely wrong?  Nope.  Remember the FARs and DARs will require
the vendor to sell to the govt at their 'most favored customer'
price.  Once they lower the price to the commercial world they
will have to lower the price to the govt.  They then loose the
ability to 'gouge the taxpayers'. 

>As it is, several Ada companies have in effect failed (Alsys, Telesoft,
>Systeam), and certainly no one is getting rich in the Ada business. In a 

Well if Alsys is not gettting rich, maybe its because most
commercial projects don't want to pay $25K + 5K annual support for
a compiler.  C and C++ are available for _much_less_.

(I really shouldn't pick on Alsys, so far they've got the only Ada
system that runs reliably for my applications.)

Mark
 

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!uvaarpa!vger.nsu.edu!g_harrison]

In article <1993Apr30.160400.25617@seas.gwu.edu>, mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michae
l Feldman) writes:
> In article <C6AuFs.GEr@ddciiny.UUCP> jls@ddciiny.UUCP (Jonathan Schilling) wr
ites:
>>
>>Not to get into the general argument about whether the existence of the
>>Ada market as a whole is due to lack of competition, it must be noted
>>that *within* the Ada market, there is definitely competition.  There are

.. good comments... from Greg, Mike, and Jonathan Schilling

Given that the Ada mandate has really directly or indirectly caused Ada vendors
not to market on a wide basis, there is still the old cause that we have to
seriously consider:  Borland and Microsoft.

These companies know how to sell software.  
As was speculated at the TRI-Ada and Ada Technology conferences, they also 
have a stake in not supporting Ada environments: it may only erode their C/C++
markets, and the cost of Ada development, marketing, etc. is not worth the
trade off.

However, the world is not using C++.  Companies still use (and purchase updates
to) PL/1, Pascal, C, FORTRAN, etc.  There is also the problem that some
companies don't advertise what software they use.  Personal conversations at
the above conferences proved to me that Ada is more widely used than can be
publically documented.
 
... maybe we need to encourage Computer Language Magazine to have an 
annual Ada issue.  maybe those up us in the academic market should yell
for more and better educational discounts.  maybe we ought to refuse to 
purchase equipment that doesn't come with Ada compilers.  
 
George

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| George C. Harrison            | PHONE : (804) 683-8654  | "Ada Spoken Here"|
| Professor of Computer Science | FAX   : (804) 683-9229  +------------------+
| Norfolk State University      | g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu |                  |
| 2401 Corprew Avenue           +-------------------------+                  |
| Norfolk VA 23504              | loop exit when RE_TIRED; end loop;         |
+-------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europ]

In article <dewar.736239358@schonberg> dewar@schonberg.NYU.EDU (Robert Dewar) w
rites:

>but it seems silly to accuse someone of
>price gouging when they are losing money!

Bad economics, I'm afraid.  Profit is the difference between income and
expenditure, ie price and cost.  Price gouging, in the customer's
perception, is a large difference between price and value.

It is certainly possible for a company to gouge its customers and make
a loss.  In fact, it's pretty typical for a company in a monopoly
situation: without the discipline of the market, there is no incentive
to control costs, and sooner or later the internal parasites devour the
organisation.  Almost any socialised industry will serve as an example.

Finding examples within US federal organisations is left as an exercise
for the reader.

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[Bjarne Stroustrup]

g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University) writes

 > There is also the problem that some
 > companies don't advertise what software they use.  Personal conversations at
 > the above conferences proved to me that Ada is more widely used than can be
 > publically documented.

Indeed, and that is true for all languages in serious industrial and commercial
 use.

Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wu]

In article <105@mlb.win.net> mbayern@mlb.win.net (Mark Bayern) writes:
> 
>Of course, from what I've seen of various vendors pricing and
>support policies (see some of my previous messages), I'd be
>surprised to find _any_ Ada vendor who didn't have that attitude. 
>Mike just found one who was willing to admit to it. 
>
Exactly.

Mike Feldman