Advice on selling Ada to a C shop
in [ADA]
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From: Ludovic Brenta on 20 Jun 2010 05:34 usenet(a)scriptoriumdesigns.com writes: > So, what points would you emphasize to each (manager, programmers) to > make the Ada sale? I've read a lot of the advocacy and I think I have > a fair handle on it, but I'd still like other viewpoints, and perhaps > even examples of such a successful switch. People with a prejudice against Ada will try to find any excuse to justify their rejection. I think the main excuse they will try is "we cannot find Ada programmers". To remove this excuse, it is of paramount importance that you show that (a) you know Ada and have experience with it, so you can be the "in-house expert" and (b) there is a wide offering of books, training courses, compilers, libraries and commercial support for the language. For (a), you must have some knowledge and experience beyond the theory; you must at least have written a couple programs that are more than 300 lines long; then explain how much you enjoyed writing those programs and watching them run the first time with no bugs :) For (b), you must do some market research up-front before you can pitch the language to your company. This is because, in many developers' minds, a language is only as good as the IDE (*not* the compiler, unfortunately); so you should be prepared to demo GPS and ObjectAda to them. Also, your should reassure them that there exists at least one cross-compiler that targets your particular environment. (hint: SofCheck offers a Ada-to-C translator which allows you to then use your existing C cross-toolchain). Maybe you want to contact the various vendors informally, they may be able to help you convince your colleagues. The fact that you do your homework before talking about Ada will go a long way towards convincing others: if Ada weren't so good, you wouldn't spend so much time with it would you? Good luck. -- Ludovic Brenta.
From: Peter C. Chapin on 20 Jun 2010 08:35 Ludovic Brenta wrote: > For (b), you must do some market research up-front before you can pitch > the language to your company. This is because, in many developers' > minds, a language is only as good as the IDE (*not* the compiler, > unfortunately); so you should be prepared to demo GPS and ObjectAda to > them. There is also gnatbench. If you are an Eclipse shop that might be the most important IDE to demonstrate. In general AdaCore does a great job at giving the impression that Ada is alive and developing. They either produce or are involved with a steady stream of new tools and targets. I'm not saying that other Ada vendors are doing nothing to develop and promote Ada, but from where I sit (admittedly an academic viewpoint), AdaCore seems the most visible. Peter
From: Peter C. Chapin on 20 Jun 2010 08:46 Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > Showing examples are one excellent way to illustrate Ada advantage over C. Putting Ada up against C seems so unfair... like kicking a man when he's down! A comparison of Ada and C++ seems more appropriate. I realize that's not what the original poster is talking about. For myself personally I became a believer when I realized Ada's various rules and restrictions were forcing my programs into a better design. In order to "work around" the Ada compiler's "annoying" messages I often had to refactor my design... sometimes more than once while I was learning the basics of the language. The funny thing... once that refactoring was complete I was left with a program that was far superior to what I was originally trying to write. As an added bonus it worked too! It didn't take too many experiences like that to convince me that Ada is good language. These days I regard the language as a kind of automated expert looking over my shoulder and helping to keep me from wandering off into the tall weeds. Unfortunately it's probably hard to demonstrate that sort of thing. One really needs to build some Ada programs. The key is convincing the team to keep an open mind during their initial experimentation with the language. If they jump to the conclusion that Ada is pointlessly fussy ("typical military language" etc), all might be lost. Peter
From: Fritz Wuehler on 20 Jun 2010 13:44 > People with a prejudice against Ada will try to find any excuse to > justify their rejection. I think the main excuse they will try is "we > cannot find Ada programmers". To remove this excuse, it is of paramount > importance that you show that (a) you know Ada and have experience with > it, so you can be the "in-house expert" and (b) there is a wide offering > of books, training courses, compilers, libraries and commercial support > for the language. If so, then the game is already over. There were days when the best tool won, if after a little competition. Unfortunately now we are in the days of software ruled by idiot bean counters and MBAs, and worse, the stock market. There is no such thing as vision that goes past the end of this quarter. You can't sell a product, or a technology, or an employee who will save you millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in the long run even if that return on investments starts within a year or two. But you can sell a cheaper anything this quarter. The industry and academia killed Ada in commercial programming before it ever got a chance. And now it's too late for anything that requires changing a mindset or paying top dollar for a toolchain (look at GHS prices!) or a high wage for Ada programmers, when Java and C++ jockeys are a commodity labor item. Unless you can come up with a programming platform/language/system that costs you less right now, in people, in hardware, in software, you have the snowball's chance in Hell of making it happen. Good doesn't matter, cheap wins every time.
From: Ludovic Brenta on 20 Jun 2010 14:06
Fritz Wuehler writes: >> People with a prejudice against Ada will try to find any excuse to >> justify their rejection. I think the main excuse they will try is "we >> cannot find Ada programmers". To remove this excuse, it is of paramount >> importance that you show that (a) you know Ada and have experience with >> it, so you can be the "in-house expert" and (b) there is a wide offering >> of books, training courses, compilers, libraries and commercial support >> for the language. > > If so, then the game is already over. There were days when the best tool > won, if after a little competition. Unfortunately now we are in the days of > software ruled by idiot bean counters and MBAs, and worse, the stock > market. > > There is no such thing as vision that goes past the end of this quarter. > > You can't sell a product, or a technology, or an employee who will save you > millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in the long run even if that > return on investments starts within a year or two. But you can sell a > cheaper anything this quarter. > > The industry and academia killed Ada in commercial programming before it > ever got a chance. And now it's too late for anything that requires > changing a mindset or paying top dollar for a toolchain (look at GHS > prices!) or a high wage for Ada programmers, when Java and C++ jockeys are a > commodity labor item. > > Unless you can come up with a programming platform/language/system that > costs you less right now, in people, in hardware, in software, you have the > snowball's chance in Hell of making it happen. Good doesn't matter, cheap > wins every time. I'm not so pessimistic, at least I will not give in without a fight :) If you already know Ada, then to the evil bean counters, the training costs zero; you can offer to give introductory training to a couple of your colleagues yourself, reducing the immediate cost of training. If you explain that your use of Ada saves you 20% of the development cost *this quarter* and 50% the next quarter, you can win. -- Ludovic Brenta. |