Re: Ada

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

Robert Dewar wrote:
> Part of the reason I think this makes less sense than you
> think is that these days students and other likely consumers
> of such a package expect to pay $0 for it, and are not about
> to go and plunk down a credit card at Fry's or anywhere else
> to buy a package of this kind!
> 
You may be right. The only way to really settle the question is to
attempt to do it and see if it sells. That can be pretty expensive. But
do keep in mind that Micro$oft is out there selling shrink-wrapped
versions of Visual C++, etc. and people *do* plunk down credit cards to
buy that.

One can debate how profitable this might be - MS may be subsidizing
their development environment in order to keep development for Windows
going on. Its hard to say without a look at the books and I wouldn't
trust rumors or corporate statements on the subject. But certainly
people do buy VC++ so why might they not buy a *better* environment that
was wrapped around an Ada compiler?


> But if you do want to create something, I think the delivery
> HAS to be free and electronic. I don't think you will get
> anywhere
> with a shrink wrapped box at Fry's.
> 
I wouldn't write off electronic delivery - e-commerce is certainly
booming in growth right now. Fry's may have to go that route themselves
just to stay in business. But remember that when you go into Fry's you
will see development kits for other languages there on the shelves.
Somebody must be making a buck doing that - is there a reason that Ada
can't be one of those players? And a big advantage to being on a shelf
in a computer store is that people who may never have had any knowlege
or interest in Ada might happen to see it and be intrigued enough to try
it out.

My desire is to see that Ada experiences growth in its application for
commercial efforts. I think that is a goal most of us in this newsgroup
would agree on. I think that a weakness Ada has when compared to some
other languages is that there isn't a one-stop source where you can pick
up everything you need for serious development. There are lots of things
you can gather from all over the net and possibly cobble together a
development environment with everything you need. If your garden variety
developer were able to get the whole ball of wax in one location with
everything glued together in a consistent manner, it might encourage
more use.

MDC
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