Re: How to Make Ada more widely used?

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1993Jun9.220019.16017@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (
fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>
>In other words, they acted in a way that was exactly what could be
>expected, given the total lack of economic forces on them.  Now you
>want to blame *them* for acting like businesses instead of how you
>would have preferred them to act.  Sorry, but folks who ignore history
>are doomed to repeat it and history (not to mention basic economics)
>teaches us that protected markets are generally going to behave pretty
>much like what we've seen Ada vendors do.  It was predictable.

Well, you're making some generalizations about protected markets here.
You may have a point, but I think it would be a good idea for you to show
some other examples, since you're so sure of what "history teaches us."
>
>So, minus all the "beltway bandit" emotional diatribes, you're upset
>that the companies making the compilers didn't push the language to
>get people who weren't interested to use it?  That wasn't their job
>(or in their interest).  Businesses maximize profits.  Spending a
>bunch of extra money to advertise and 'sell' a language that they've
>been gifted with a captive market for would merely be stupid on their
>part. 

Clearly there's room in the world for several opinions on this. Mine
happens to be that is _was_ in their interest to take a technology that
was _manifestly_ "dual purpose", that they had already invested in
developing, and spend money to make money, selling this product to
a much wider clientele. You sau "businesses maximize profits." I
certainly agree; so they should. But you are not distinguishing between
the profits in the next quarter and the profits in the next decade.

You opine that it was predictable - and in their interest - to go for the 
short-term bucks and neglect building up the long-term demand for their
products. I opine that this next-quarter obsession is a relatively
recent thing in US business and is a mentality that is preventing US
business from making the investments that will keep the economy going in 
the long haul. Much of American business has, for the last, say, 15 years,
focused more on pushing paper, buying each other, building empty buildings,
etc., than on making long-term investment. Much of American business got
so caught up in the Defense buildup that they never focused on what they
would do in the inevitable build-down. 

I knew something was wrong when Westinghouse stopped selling lightbulbs
and Singer stopped selling sewing machines. We will all be stuck, one way
or another, paying for these companies to get back to their roots in the
broader-than-defense sector.

There needs to be a balance between short and long term.

Whether, in a protected market, _any_ business would've gone the way of
the Ada business, is - I opine - just your opinion, to which you are
certainly entitled.

I think I'm going to declare a 1-person moratorium on armchair analysis
for a while. Anyone want to join me? Let's see if we can get the group back 
on technical stuff. We can certainly take the flamewars to e-mail.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5253 (voice) - 202-994-5296 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
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