Re: April 1993: Ada9X mortally wounded in non-Mandated press

Re: April 1993: Ada9X mortally wounded in non-Mandated press

[David Emery]

The Business Week article is indeed inaccurate.  But, what should the
Government do?  Arrest the author for being wrong?  I really don't
understand what Greg would have "the Ada community" do in these
circumstances... 

				dave

Re: April 1993: Ada9X mortally wounded in non-Mandated press

[Gregory Aharonian]

>The Business Week article is indeed inaccurate.  But, what should the
>Government do?  Arrest the author for being wrong?  I really don't
>understand what Greg would have "the Ada community" do in these
>circumstances... 

    Ever hear of marketing?  Ever hear of public relations?  Picking up
the phone and calling an editor?  Placing an ad in a journal?  You don't
know what the Ada community should do?  As an employee of MITRE, a firm
that advises the Air Force in its support of the Mandate, you are telling
me you have no clue what the Ada community should do for all of the bad
press (or no press) that Ada is getting?  You have no idea why Ada needs
more visibility outside the Mandated world for the Mandate to succeed?
If you guys market MITRE like you do Ada, you'd be out of business in a
short time.  What kind of advice do you give the Air Force?

    Wake up.  Outside the Mandated world, Ada is dead, because of the
arrogance of people inside the Mandated world.  No one wants to take
responibility to make sure that Ada succeeds enough across the country
for the Mandate to be meaningful.  Unless enough programmers and tool
companies are attracted to Ada, it will be less cost-effective to
program in Ada, so that the net result of the Mandate will be to make
defense software development costs increase instead of decrease.  Which
is probably what the Ada contractors want anyways.

Greg Aharonian
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: April 1993: Ada9X mortally wounded in non-Mandated press

[David Emery]

If all this "marketing stuff" were as easy as Greg implies it is, then
there is no real reason for his reuse business to be anything less
than wildly successful.  
				dave

Re: April 1993: Ada9X mortally wounded in non-Mandated press

[Richard A Hammond]

In article <EMERY.93Apr18123355@dr_no.mitre.org> emery@dr_no.mitre.org (David E
mery) writes:
>If all this "marketing stuff" were as easy as Greg implies it is, then
>there is no real reason for his reuse business to be anything less
>than wildly successful.  
>				dave

You're forgetting one thing, Greg has spent only a very small fraction
of the money the DoD has spent on Ada.  As a taxpayer I strongly agree
with Greg, that the money being spent on STARS and some of the other
Ada related projects is mostly a waste of money, given what was and
what could have been accomplished.

I also agree with Greg that the Ada compiler vendor's reasoning smacks of
self fulfilling prophecy.  "There is a small market for Ada so we have to
charge BIG bucks per compiler" which of course ensures that the market
stays small.  This is OK when you have the Ada mandate to fall back on,
you know the market is small, but won't vanish entirely, so you choose
lower volume and much higher prices, knowing you'll get those high
prices at taxpayer's expense.

If Ada wasn't mandated it would be dead now.  And it shouldn't be, it
is a useful language.

Rich Hammond

Re: April 1993: Ada9X mortally wounded in non-Mandated press

[Gary Funck]

In article <C5pEqK.Kxt@crdnns.crd.ge.com> hammondr@sunroof.crd.ge.com (Richard 
A Hammond) writes:
>In article <EMERY.93Apr18123355@dr_no.mitre.org> emery@dr_no.mitre.org (David 
Emery) writes:
>>If all this "marketing stuff" were as easy as Greg implies it is, then
>>there is no real reason for his reuse business to be anything less
>>than wildly successful.  
>>				dave
>
>I also agree with Greg that the Ada compiler vendor's reasoning smacks of
>self fulfilling prophecy.  "There is a small market for Ada so we have to
>charge BIG bucks per compiler" which of course ensures that the market
>stays small.  This is OK when you have the Ada mandate to fall back on,
>you know the market is small, but won't vanish entirely, so you choose
>lower volume and much higher prices, knowing you'll get those high
>prices at taxpayer's expense.
>
>If Ada wasn't mandated it would be dead now.  And it shouldn't be, it
>Rich Hammond

A case in point is Smalltalk.  No mandate, very small following.   However,
due to its own merits and the extensive marketing efforts of ParcPlace,
its customer base is growing, and Smalltalk seems to have established
a useful niche in GUI/OOP application area.  The articles quoted by
Greg support this claim.

Perhaps the same can be said for Forth, but I won't go into that black hole :-)
.
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