Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request

["Richard Riehle" <adaworks@earthlink.net>]

"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