Re: Query about monitor (passive) task optimization

[agate!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!seas.gwu .edu!mfeldman@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Feldman)]

In article <248946$2f4@schonberg.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wr
ites:
>Mike, one point that I keep making. It is absolutely NOT fair to paint all
>Ada vendors as entirely defence oriented. In fact Alsys was founded by JDI
>on the principle of specifically going after the non-military market. While
>this succeeded fairly well in France, it was of limited success in the US.

Since you brought it up, I must respond. It may look purely self-serving
to say so, but Alsys missed out on a chance to hook students and teachers,
in the years before 1991 when, of all the Ada vendors, Ada was BY FAR the
most contemptuous of dealing with guys like us. You may have been too
close to Alsys to see how they were treating the rest of us. Dangerous
as it is to argue post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc, I can't help thinking that
there may have been some relationship.

>I think part of the problem is that even though there were some successes
>(you have the list!) compiler companies for any compiler for any language
>have a heck of a hard time making money. It is true that Alsys has turned
>to the defence industry more in recent years -- you go where the money is
>in any business. It may also be true that Alsys did not make the right
>decisions, who knows? but it is truly unfair to include Alsys in your
>blanket criticism of Ada companies attitudes.

Alsys is indeed very successful abroad in things like air traffic control.
And don't get me wrong - obviously I have no problem with any company selling
to defense. It's when they get focused _only_ on defense that I worry.
(Not just compiler companies, either - I knew something strange was
happening in this country when Singer stopped selling sewing machines and
Westinghouse stopped selling lightbulbs.)

As for tarring them all with the same brush - I have worked very hard to
keep my criticisms general and my compliments specific. I walk a fine
line, because I do _not_ want to single out individual companies or
individual people for abuse. My own integrity is at stake on this. What 
I flame at is a _culture_ in the Ada business. Some companies are maybe
a little better here, a little worse there. But no Ada company that I could
observe, in this country, with the possible exception of RR in the early
days, set out to make its name a household word (as it were). Alsys
included. Meridian is as close as one gets. At least they advertised
in the Ada issue of CACM...

Surely the Software Through Pictures compnany is not that much larger or 
richer than the Ada shops, yet IDE finds the bucks to put color full-pagers 
frequently in IEEE Software. Name recognition counts in this stuff.
(Oh, BTW - you'd almost never guess from the IDE ads that their product
talks to Ada as well as C++...)

Ada houses are, now, starting to change. I don't want to take more credit
than is due me (or some of my colleagues who hit these issues in other 
forums), and arguing back from effect to cause is dangerous, but I think
we have had some effect. Undoubtedly the major cause is the shrinking
defense budgets.

Whatever the cause, the change - ESPECIALLY at Alsys - is _most_ welcome.
>
>I suspect the criticism is also inappropriate for several other Ada vendors,
>but I am not close enough to speak for them so I will let them speak for
>themselves [just an example: Rational's involvement with the new government
>information system in Singapore seems to me a clear counter-example and I
>think there are probably many others].

I have not heard about the Singapore system, and it's not mentioned in
Rational's Summer 93 newsletter. Nor was it on the list Rational sent
me a few months ago. When/where was this announced?

Rational is also showing a new face, and a most welcome one at that.

Mike Feldman