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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
X-To:
Pat Rogers <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 3 Oct 2000 01:50:39 +1000
Reply-To:
Alan and Carmel Brain <[log in to unmask]>
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From:
Alan and Carmel Brain <[log in to unmask]>
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From: "Pat Rogers" <[log in to unmask]>
> > Do the project in Ada, it takes 30 people 2 years, then 1 person to
> > maintain.
> >
> > Do it in C++, it takes 30 people 18 months, then 20 people to maintain.
>
> <begin rant>
> No, no, no!  This idea that it generally/usually/always takes longer to
> develop the initial product in Ada -- i.e. that productivity is lower in
> Ada -- must not continue to be promulgated

I must disagree.

It takes less time in Ada to make a *working* product. One that pretty
much does just about all of what it's supposed to. But one that
sorta kinda appears to work if you don't look closely - good enough for
release to a non-discerning public used to Microsoft's lack of quality -
that can be done quicker in C, C++ etc.

Of course I've personally seen a complex Ada AI system that communicated
with a dozen simple peripherals, where the single PCs emulating them
(programmed in C) sorta kinda sometimes worked after 1 week of programming.
But 3 months later, the Ada system was ready with zero category 3 or above
defects in many Klocs, and these comparitively trivial systems in
C were still "90% complete", requiring 2/3 of the original team to
"maintain".

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