Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request

[Adrian Hoe <AdrianHoe@nowhere.com>]

Richard Riehle wrote:
> "Ed Falis" <falis@verizon.net> wrote in message
> news:opsdeaw7ox5afhvo@localhost...
> 
>>On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:10:34 +0800, Adrian Hoe <AdrianHoe@nowhere.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>But, what did GNAT, Aonix, Intermetrics, Greenhill and other Ada
>>>compiler vendors do? They did nothing to promote Ada.
>>
>>What a crock of horse-hockey!
>>
>>And no, I'm not going to list 15 years of Ada advocacy efforts on the part
>>of the vendors.
>>
> 
> I will say a few words about this.
> 
> Ada Core Technologies has, and continues to have, an initiative
> for promoting Ada.   The very fact that GNAT is available free
> is a substantial achievement.   Aonix, though more recently less
> of an advocated, also has a free compiler and gave away
> thousands of copies of its early Ada 95 compiler at conferences
> and elsewhere.
> 
> During the early years, there was a lot of advocacy.  I recall
> getting excellent support for my own advocacy efforts from
> Alsys, especially when Lori Heyman was in charge of public
> relations there.   Ben Brosgol traveled all over the world
> presenting Ada to a wide range of audiences.
> 
> Let's not forget the efforts of Ralph Crafts.  He worked his
> butt off trying to promote Ada to a larger venue.  He finally
> burned out and left the Ada industry, but his work on the
> behalf of Ada was second to none.
> 
> For Ada 83, we had the Meridian Ada compiler, and the
> Janus Ada compiler, both of which were reasonably
> priced.   Though Janus was probably a slightly better
> compiler, Meridian took the trouble to provide a good
> library for writing DOS programs and that made it
> popular in a lot of university environments.
> 
> Then there were other organizations, composed mostly of
> Ada compiler publishers.   When Ada 95 came on the scene,
> a large chunk of money was set aside for publicity and
> promotion.  Sadly, much of it was squandered on silly
> advertisements and posters that had no chance of convincing
> anyone.  Even so, the ARA did give it a try even with
> very limited resources.
> 
> Promotion takes money.  In the current world of Ada, there
> is not much of that available.   Some compiler publishers
> are not earning much money on Ada at present.  This is
> due, in large part, to the move away from Ada toward
> other languages for some important military projects.  Few
> compiler companies can thrive, at present, by relying
> solely on its Ada products.
> 
> Ada suffered some early setbacks because of bad policy
> decisions on the part of the DoD as well as the compiler
> publishers.   When the DoD insisted that all software
> be written in a language for which compilers did not
> yet exist, it set up a plan for failure.   That policy was
> followed with a waiver policy that added to the problem.
> Overall, the early DoD management of its Ada initiative
> was pretty bad.   The blame for this can be assigned to
> a fairly high level within the DoD, indeed, within the
> U.S. Government, where officials failed to understand
> the value, the importance, of this initiative.
> 
> The compiler publishers, all of which were staffed by
> a lot of bright, enthusiastic, and conscientious people,
> made their own mistakes.   Failure to provide a full
> set of facilities for the popular targeted platforms was
> one (except for Meridian, cited earlier).  Failure to
> coordinate with each other to develop a set of
> portable libraries.   Setting prices so high, for the
> really good compilers, that Non-DoD companies
> could not justify the use of Ada to their own
> management.   Failure to fully grasp the impact
> of the microcomputer revolution and adapt their
> compilers, at appropriate pricing, to meet the
> demand (again Meridian and Janus were the
> exceptions).    Failure to be flexible enough as
> the microcomputer industry evolved through a
> variety of human-machine interaction modes.
> Failure to develop good file management, database
> management, and other libraries that could attract
> a larger following.
> 
> Ada entered the marketplace at a time of marketplace
> change.   The changes were occurring so fast that
> a language that could not change at the same pace,
> or where tools and libraries could not keep up with
> that pace, was bound to be suspect.
> 
> Finally, just as Ada reached a point where it was the
> ideal solution for a larger range of environments and
> applications (free compilers, better tools for windowing
> environments, good editors, lots of good libraries, etc),
> it had its support cut from under it by the very organization
> that needed it most, the DoD.   Funding was cut, the
> AdaIC was disbanded, and the developers rushed to
> C++ in droves.  It was a classic case where the DoD
> grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory.    Ada had
> become one of the most effective development tools
> available, in my view, far superior to the C++ of the
> time, and the DoD management simply abandoned
> it.  I continue to encounter DoD officials who seriously
> believe that the DoD has now banned the use of
> Ada for future software projects.   At present, I know
> of no high-ranking DoD official who will rebut that
> view.  At present, no one in the DoD, certainly no
> one in the Pentagon, wants to have his/her name
> publicly associated with Ada in any way.    They look
> upon it as a failed project.   How does anyone counter
> that view?  How do we revive confidence in Ada once
> it has become a pariah among the very people who
> will benefit from it?    Sadly, these senior officials
> have washed their hands of anything to do with language
> selection, and our weapon systems are going to be
> awash with awful, unmaintainable software, and
> probably less reliable software written in C++.   The
> deleterious effects of all this C++ code will not
> manifest itself for a long time, and when it does, it
> will be too late.
> 
> Richard Riehle
> 
> 
> 
> 


And no, this is not a crock!

What use to have fully functional and free compiler available for 
download? For someone who has not heard of Ada and does not even know 
the existence of such programming language, how does one come to know 
there is a fully functional and free Ada compiler for download?

Turn the pages of computing magazines, advertisements and projects 
write-outs about Java, Perl, C#, .NET, Delphi, Kylix and etc. come alive 
in front of these magazines readers. Ada?

I knew about Ada when I flipped through a catalog of pirated software 
around mid 1980's. I bought it for M$5 for an Apple CP/M. I could not 
find an Ada book then. After mingling with it for sometimes, I put the 
floppy disk in a cupboard until the end of 1993. I recalled something 
called Ada and did a search on Internet and there began my Ada love affairs.

I read about one article about Alsys Ada in PC Magazine (I can't exactly 
remember the name of the magazine, I hope the name is correct) in late 
80's or early 90's. That's the only article I read about Ada since then 
(I might have missed some other Ada articles in later years).

Providing a free Ada compiler is not enough to promote Ada.
-- 
Adrian Hoe
m a i l b o x AT a d r i a n h o e . c o m