Re: Why don't large companies use Ada?

I have done a lot of Ada development. Personally, I liked ada except for the package Text_Io. I hated Text_Io! Ada has the reputation of expencive complilers, huge executables, hogs system resources, and "its only for the government to use." (i.e. NASA, DoD, etc.)

Also, Ada requires a extensive development environment to take advantage of all of its features. (i.e. CASE tool, a language specific editor, a library manager, a configuration management/version control system, etc.)

Some people associate Ada with the Rational Ada development system. It is a very nice and integrated environment. But, it cost over a $100,100 for a system that can only be used by twelve people. Six to eight simultaneous users was optimal. And don't forget the keyboard! I have never seen so many keys plus the number of ESC+control+shift+alt+meta+keypress combinations! Personally, I did not mind that but, it is a very scary sight. The apollo Rational emulator software was very nice.

A lot of people did not like the strict type checking. They felt like it was very combersome and too restrictive.

I have not used Ada 9x so, it may have relieved a lot the problems with Ada 83. I would like to see Ada make a comeback but its reputation as a dinosuar is probably to strong to allow it.

Just my $0.02 (plus tax) worth,
Steven Whatley

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