WilTel chooses Objective C - another loss for Ada

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

   WilTel is the fourth largest long distance carrier in the United States,
after ATT, MCI and Sprint.  WilTel is part of the Williams companies, which
was mainly a nationwide natural gas pipeline deliverer, until someone there
had the brilliant idea to snake fiber optics through their pipelines and
create a telecommunications backbone.  It was a great idea, well executed
since then, with many satistfied customers.
   Nonetheless, WilTel is still a small player in this arena, and has to
be better than the others to gain market share.  Recently WilTel started 
offering custom-developed network applications to (potential) clients.
Given the commodity nature of bandwidth, providing software based services
seems the way to compete.  Unfortunately, WilTel's competitors are doing
much the same, so WilTel can't afford to screw up, especially since they
are basing this new service on object oriented programming techniques.

   WilTel has an Advanced Technology Group (The Woodlands, TX) where this
work is being done.  From an article in Communications Week, August 9,
page 1 & 57:

	"To create a new development mode, the ATG hired 35 new
	programmers, mainly with experience in the Smalltalk
	object oriented language because the language, unlike C++,
	forces developers to think about their application in
	object-oriented concepts.  The ATG currently uses Objective
	C with NeXTStep on NeXT workstations and Intel 486 PCs.

        Eighteen months after coding began, ATG now has about 800
	'class specifications' and 8000 'methods', and nearly 500,000
	lines of code.  This library of reusable software has finally
	begun to shorten the development cycle.  "We're getting to the
	point where we can see a five-to-one improvement in development
	time"  [Gee what STARS lied about with Ada, others are achieving
	with other languages].  Another benefit is ATG programmers can
	create prototype capabilities very quickly, review them, and
	just as quickly modify them without starting all over.

==============================================================================

   Now I am sure that before ATG management committed ATG to this effort,
an effort WilTel could not afford to screw up, I am sure they looked at
a variety of languages and technologies before settling on hiring Smalltalk
people and having them program in Objective C.

   But I doubt highly they gave much thought to Ada, because I doubt highly
they were ever exposed to much from the Ada community.  Yet companies like
WilTel is where Ada is going to make the breakthroughs into mass acceptance;
focused efforts in highly visible projects where new stuff is being adopted.

  This is the price the Ada community pays for continuing to boycott 
attendance at the non-Mandated trade shows for software engineering,
communications, networking, and object oriented programming, where managers
like those from WilTel will attend.

   Much more of this, and Ada will be no more popular and used than THLL.
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian                                      srctran@world.std.com
 Source Translation & Optimization                            617-489-3727
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178