Re: Ada

["Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com>]

Roger Racine wrote:
> 2) Time to Market.  Ada is a readable language.  C is a writeable
> language.  People think they are more productive using C because they
> get to integration faster, and they might get a software system to
> market sooner than with Ada.  Ada will allow people to find certain
> errors more easily, but this is not perceived to be a significant
> enough improvement, and for most commercial software, getting all the
> bugs out is not necessary to getting a product out.
> 
I beg to differ - sort of. In many systems Ada gets you to market sooner
with fewer problems. Assuming skilled programmers in each case. Where
C/C++ has an edge is in areas where you get tons of reusable libraries
with it, such as in Visual C++. But this is just one type of system
development. I've been playing with the CLAW GUI builder demo and found
that it will build Ada GUI programs quite easily, so it isn't as if Ada
*can't* do it - just that it isn't as easily marketed. If you got CLAW,
a compiler, a bunch of utilities (Similar to MFC? Where is the ACLWG
these days anyway?) manuals, tutorials, a book, a configuration
management system, etc. all in one package it might compete well in the
"Time To Market" field. All these things exist, but not as a single, one
stop shopping, package. (Maybe a teaming effort is needed?)


> 5) Tools.  Books, compilers, development environments, are all more
> available and cheaper for C than for Ada.  I can go into a local

Definitely. I was recently at a big electronics store in San Jose and
looked through their stacks of books relating to programming &
languages. Hundreds of books available on C, C++, Perl, Cobol, etc. Not
a single text on Ada, even though many good ones exist. It is sort of a
deadlock situation - The store doesn't want to stock something for which
there won't be a reasonable level of sales. The potential vendors don't
want to subsidize it because revenues are too thin to do so. The
potential users have little interest because it isn't just sitting right
there waiting for them to pick it up. The deadlock continues.

Now potentially, it would be possible for some of the vendors to get
together to produce an integrated package with each supplying some part
of the end product. A joint venture would spread the risk and might
bring sufficient resources to bear to actually put up a shrink-wrapped
package on a display rack on the floor of a few computer stores. Done
right with a sufficiently narrow focus, it could succeed and make
everyone a few bucks while making Ada a bit more prevalent. I'd
certainly be interested in discussing it... ;-)

MDC
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