Re: How to Make Ada more widely used?

[cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!seas.gwu.edu!mfeld man@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1993Jun8.132425.4553@sei.cmu.edu> ae@sei.cmu.edu (Arthur Evans) wri
tes:
>
[stuff deleted]

>Probably some did; surely not all.  One company I'm familiar with came
>into the business intending to specialize in the highest possible
>quality of compiled code.  They quickly realized that this criterion was
>not terribly important in many markets and so concentrated on embedded
>applications.  Although many of their customers are in the so-called
>"mandated" world, others are using Ada because they perceive that it
>best meets their needs, and are using this company because they really
>care about code quality.

This sounds like Tartan or DDC-I. I think it would be really neat if 
someone who knows someone there could ask if they have any non-mandated
customers who'd be willing to see their names turn up on a list like mine.

>
>This company has no products for platforms such as PCs or Macs because
>such users are rarely willing to pay a lot extra to save the last few
>microseconds at run time.  I certainly wouldn't pay on my Mac -- I'm
>much more concerned with ease of use.
>
Absolutely. For many desktop PC's with human users (not embedded ones),
nearly any application that's not heavy into number-crunching will run
faster than its human user. Fast enough is fast enough. I've written
a _whole lot_ of programs with Ada/Ed DOS, which, on my 386-33, run
fast enough so that their execution performance is indistinguishable
to the _human_ user from a genuine executable program. And this is
with an interpretive back end running around a P-code file. 

I'm not suggesting that we all go out and write everything with Ada/Ed; 
rather, I took it as an extreme example of how "fast enough is fast 
enough."

>Otherwise, I agree with the point Mike has made.  Why is there only one
>Ada vendor for the Mac?  It would be instructive if some of the vendors
>would reply about how they see the market place.  I expect they would
>raise some points we haven't seen here up to now.
>
There have been 3 vendors who developed compilers for the Mac. Meridian is
still in the game; Alsys and TeleSoft (yes, I know they're the same now)
dropped out. TeleSoft never released a MacOS compiler, only an A/UX one.
Alsys had a MacOS system but dropped it _just_ as the typical Macs were
getting big and fast enough to run a good Ada system well. (Meridian on
my IIci is quite respectable; I haven't tried Alsys.) I thought it quite
foolish of Alsys to drop it prematurely. Apparently they aren't Mac-savvy
enough to realize the degree to which the hardware has caught up with Ada.
(The typical new Mac is a 68030 with 4-8 mb RAM, running fast enough
to make even a slow Ada compiler tolerable.)

The following is based in small part on contact I've had, in large part
on educated guessing. All three companies built their Ada compilers because 
they thought they saw some big DoD or NASA contracts coming down for the Mac 
platform. When these did not materialize, the vendors saw no particular 
reason to stay with the Mac, which they perceived as a "small market."

This was a good example, Art, of (what I perceive to be) the narrow
Uncle-Sam-oriented-ness of the Ada companies. When the government
contracts did not materialize for the Mac, bye-bye Mac compilers.

Meridian has yielded to pressure from "the rest of us" to stay in the
Mac game, but they don't invest a heck of a lot in their compiler. They
do support a very usable, if "thin", System 7 toolbox binding. Meridian
has told me that they make a profit selling their DOS and Mac systems at 
retail, and even their student-priced systems bring positive cash flow.
(Meridian has authorized me to say stuff like this.)

With some investment in their Mac system, and some nicely targeted
advertising of it, I'll bet they could make it more popular than it is.
They have the market all to themselves; I think they are not really
exploiting it. Mac fans: can we make them hear us?

Cheers -

Mike Feldman
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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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