Vendor bashing and pushing Ada....and an ad from SGI.

[dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller)]

I've been quietly watching the fireworks going on between Mike
Feldman and Robert Dewar for a little bit now, and I just want to
make a couple of observations.

Both of you are raising good points.  Mike, you're rightfully
frustrated at Ada's "second class citizen" status in the programming
language world.  I can agree with those feelings, as well as several
other newsreaders.  Robert points out that the vendors are not
entirely to blame for the language achieving this status, that they
have indeed made an effort to sell Ada.

There are a lot of trends we can see that have made the road tough
for Ada.  I hope we can all agree that, for increasing "market share"
of Ada, that Ada 9X stands to be our second chance (and perhaps last
:-/).  We have watched how _not_ to do the job, and we are smarter
about the issues.  Still, I have a lot of people -- really smart
people who were once strong Ada advocates -- tell me that Ada has
missed its chance.  I disagree with this.  There are others who tell
me that Ada's position is with the government sector, that it will
never be able to obtain the lion's share (please, let's not bring up
_that_ discussion again :-) of the commercial market.  I disagree to
an extent here -- I _believe_ there is a commercial niche for Ada.
If I were asked, "How much of the market, then, Dave?", I would say,
"10%".  A modest goal, but certainly one that isn't met at this time.

I would also like to believe that both Robert and Mike are in violent
agreement that Ada _should_ be a commonly-used language.  It is not
our goal to displace or take over the C++, Eiffel, or Smalltalk
markets, but rather to carve out our own respectable niche in every
software domain.  Not the _Government_ domain, but _every_ domain
that is applicable to imperative languages.  Here in Houston, for
instance, some petroleum companies are looking at how to migrate
their Fortran code to "something else".  The bottom line is that
there was not a "knee jerk" response to consider, say, C++, but
rather to find an appropriate migration path.  Ada 9X has indeed been
developed to be _that_ migration path.  Interfaces to Fortran, COBOL,
and C have all been worked out.  These are the folks that want to
move ahead, but in a reasonable and disciplined manner.  And _those_
folks exist in EVERY domain.

OK, so I'm stating the obvious.  I guess I'm just venting.  However,
here's an interesting tidbit.  There has been a discussion about
"creating the market" (entrepeneurial approach) vs. "following the
market" (market-driven approach).   Both approaches work very well.

As an example of trying to build a market, look at SGI's recent
advert in the October issue of Byte magazine (a paragon of technical
accuracy :-):
	pg 216
	WHILE YOU'RE LOOKING AT POWER-PCs, MAY WE SUGGEST ANOTHER
	CLASS ALTOGETHER?

		The Free INDY Seminar Series

	You're looking for more power.  You want to most complex
	compute tasks to occur without a hitch, for 3D graphics to
	fly effortlessly through space, and for everything from data
	analysis to image manipulation to happen in a blink.  Allow
	us to suggest the Indy workstation -- RISC power that comes
	with years of experience.  To reserve your space for the free
	seminar in your area, call 1-800-800-7441 Dept B211 today.

(Copyright SGI and all that)

Now, I'm not ranting or anything.  I'm just trying to point out an
example of a company trying to create a market that one may not
consider to be "their business".  The point is that companies _do_
create markets, just as much as they follow them.  

In my opinion, there's room to create a broader market for Ada.  My
opinion isn't formet from complex market studies (or, some would
claim, eve common sense :-), but rather from (as some philosopher
whose name I Kant remember) "the will to believe".  I find, in many
ways, this "will" translates into enthusiasm, which tends to be
contagious :-)

-- 
Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2)        ||This is not your
             Ada 9X -- It doesn't suck                       ||  father's Ada
For all sorts of interesting Ada 9X tidbits, run the command:||________________
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
     **Tri-Ada '94, Nov 7-11, Baltimore, MD -- Something for Everybody.**