Re: Ada

[Magnus Alexandersson <m96maal@mtek.chalmers.se>]

"Marin D. Condic" wrote:
 
> 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. 

My school is dropping Ada for Java since the Ada books are hiedously
expensive here in Sweden and Javabooks come by the tenfold...

Reality bites, huh?"Marin D. Condic" wrote:
> 
> 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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> Marin David Condic   - Quadrus Corporation -   1.800.555.3393
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> 
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> 
> "Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin."
>         --  Allan Meltzer, Economist
> =============================================================


-- 
///Magnus

http://www.mdtsud.chalmers.se/~md8maal