Vendor bashing and pushing Ada....and an ad from SGI.
David Weller
I've been quietly watching the fireworks going on between Mike
Feldman and Robert Dewar for a little bit now, and I just want to
make a couple of observations.
Both of you are raising good points. Mike, you're rightfully
frustrated at Ada's "second class citizen" status in the programming
language world. I can agree with those feelings, as well as several
other newsreaders. Robert points out that the vendors are not
entirely to blame for the language achieving this status, that they
have indeed made an effort to sell Ada.
There are a lot of trends we can see that have made the road tough
for Ada. I hope we can all agree that, for increasing "market share"
of Ada, that Ada 9X stands to be our second chance (and perhaps last
:-/). We have watched how _not_ to do the job, and we are smarter
about the issues. Still, I have a lot of people -- really smart
people who were once strong Ada advocates -- tell me that Ada has
missed its chance. I disagree with this. There are others who tell
me that Ada's position is with the government sector, that it will
never be able to obtain the lion's share (please, let's not bring up
_that_ discussion again :-) of the commercial market. I disagree to
an extent here -- I _believe_ there is a commercial niche for Ada.
If I were asked, "How much of the market, then, Dave?", I would say,
"10%". A modest goal, but certainly one that isn't met at this time.
I would also like to believe that both Robert and Mike are in violent
agreement that Ada _should_ be a commonly-used language. It is not
our goal to displace or take over the C++, Eiffel, or Smalltalk
markets, but rather to carve out our own respectable niche in every
software domain. Not the _Government_ domain, but _every_ domain
that is applicable to imperative languages. Here in Houston, for
instance, some petroleum companies are looking at how to migrate
their Fortran code to "something else". The bottom line is that
there was not a "knee jerk" response to consider, say, C++, but
rather to find an appropriate migration path. Ada 9X has indeed been
developed to be _that_ migration path. Interfaces to Fortran, COBOL,
and C have all been worked out. These are the folks that want to
move ahead, but in a reasonable and disciplined manner. And _those_
folks exist in EVERY domain.
OK, so I'm stating the obvious. I guess I'm just venting. However,
here's an interesting tidbit. There has been a discussion about
"creating the market" (entrepeneurial approach) vs. "following the
market" (market-driven approach). Both approaches work very well.
As an example of trying to build a market, look at SGI's recent
advert in the October issue of Byte magazine (a paragon of technical
accuracy :-):
pg 216
WHILE YOU'RE LOOKING AT POWER-PCs, MAY WE SUGGEST ANOTHER
CLASS ALTOGETHER?
The Free INDY Seminar Series
You're looking for more power. You want to most complex
compute tasks to occur without a hitch, for 3D graphics to
fly effortlessly through space, and for everything from data
analysis to image manipulation to happen in a blink. Allow
us to suggest the Indy workstation -- RISC power that comes
with years of experience. To reserve your space for the free
seminar in your area, call 1-800-800-7441 Dept B211 today.
(Copyright SGI and all that)
Now, I'm not ranting or anything. I'm just trying to point out an
example of a company trying to create a market that one may not
consider to be "their business". The point is that companies _do_
create markets, just as much as they follow them.
In my opinion, there's room to create a broader market for Ada. My
opinion isn't formet from complex market studies (or, some would
claim, eve common sense :-), but rather from (as some philosopher
whose name I Kant remember) "the will to believe". I find, in many
ways, this "will" translates into enthusiasm, which tends to be
contagious :-)
--
Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2) ||This is not your
Ada 9X -- It doesn't suck || father's Ada
For all sorts of interesting Ada 9X tidbits, run the command:||________________
"finger dwe...@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
**Tri-Ada '94, Nov 7-11, Baltimore, MD -- Something for Everybody.**
Robert Dewar
P.S. those ain't fireworks between Mike and me, them's merely
animated discussions :-)
David Weller
Sorry, Robert, as a TV child, I was taught by American media to
characterize and define everything in such a way as to increase
viewer share :-)
Paul Pukite
>In my opinion, there's room to create a broader market for Ada. My
>opinion isn't formet from complex market studies (or, some would
>claim, eve common sense :-), but rather from (as some philosopher
>whose name I Kant remember) "the will to believe". I find, in many
>ways, this "will" translates into enthusiasm, which tends to be
>contagious :-)
Right on the money, which leads into a quote I picked up:
"There are a small group of people who make things happen, a
little larger group of people who watch what is going to happen,
and the overwhelming majority, who haven't the slightest idea
of what is happening."
The people who have the enthusiasm and can make things happen include
Professor Feldman, the GNAT team, the 9X team, and Team Ada volunteers
(Dave and Magnus in particular).
The rest of us with a vested interest in Ada should feed off this
enthusiasm and help get the word out. Granted, it's not easy to
penetrate the mass-market computing world, but we have to keep trying
with articles or letters-to-the-editor promoting these wonderful tools
like GNAT, Ada-Ed, etc. Be persistent. Just today, I got back a
rejection letter for an article I wrote for PC Techniques. It said:
PAUL - OUR SURVEYS DON'T SHOW MUCH ADA USAGE AMONG
THE READERS, SO I'LL HAVE TO PASS. THANKS FOR LETTING
ME SEE IT, THO - (signed) Jeff Duntemann
(all caps, no kidding!)
I have to laugh, we must be on the right track!
Comp.lang.ada provides a platform for polishing our arguments and
creating inspirational pep-talks before the big game. But, as we all
know, the big game occurs in the mass-media world of advertising.
(Does anyone know how many people actually read Usenet?
My guess is that the number of lurkers roughly equals the number of
active participants -- i.e. not many)
--
Paul Pukite (puk...@daina.com)
DAINA Engineering 612/781-7600
4111 Central AVE NE, Suite 212
Minneapolis, MN 55421-2953
Daneil Wengelin
editor of the daily paper "The Australian" special section on
computers and questioned why Ada94 had not been mentioned as an
alternative in the article about the problems with C++ in OOP.
All of us should take an hour and write to or call that old
friend that works at the computer magazine, or that company that
uses computers and have a chat about things. That's how we'd
make impact.
Let's bash it in!
-Daniel
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Daniel Wengelin -- If the only prerequisite to --
-- CelsiusTech -- be a member of team Ada is to --
-- da...@celsiustech.se -- advocate it, I'm in. Otherwise, --
-- weng...@ozspace.brisnet.org.au -- where do I sign? --
------------------------------------------------------------------------
with Standard_Disclaimer;
Robert Dewar
(do they teach about Guy Fawkes in the US?) :-)
Andrew Dunstan
|> Right, for us fireworks is associated with the bad guys
|> (do they teach about Guy Fawkes in the US?) :-)
|>
It has been said of Guy Fawkes that he was the only man ever to enter
Parliament with honest intentions. Does this make him one of the
good guys?
cheers
andrew
Robert Dewar
Ah-ha! I see an Australian, that explains it :-)
I fear me this thread has wandered far from Ada, time for those of you out
there who actually expect to read about Ada in comp.lang.ada to add another
entry to your kill file :-)