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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Tucker Taft <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 25 Nov 1996 13:53:50 -0500
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Reply-To:
Tucker Taft <[log in to unmask]>
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> ...
> But perhaps not always. For example, did Intermetrics really do a market
> survey and find a lot of users wanting to write Ada applets, or did someone
> at Intermetrics say, "Wouldn't it be neat to do this? Let's build a beta and
> see if there's a market."

On the other hand, we have not worried much about validatability.
We are trying to provide a useful tool.  We are using a validated
Ada 95 front end, but we have not focused on producing a validated
byte-code generator, but rather on a byte-code generator that is
most compatible with the Java platform.  Someday we may achieve
validation on this target, but probably only if a customer believes
this is really necessary for the tool to be useful.

> If the latter, it's unfortunate that an Intermetrics (or some other compiler
> vendor) wouldn't do the same for these small processors: Build an Ada 95
> implementation (or a subset, if required) for some popular 8-bit
> microsequencers,
> advertise it in ESP and similar rags, and see who buys it.

This is certainly possible.  However, in terms of volume of developers
and expected return on investment, Java happens to be a much easier bet
to make than does perhaps some particular 8-bit architecture.  Although
there are billions of 8051's out there, there are probably only 1000's
of developers, whereas there are 100,000's of Java developers already,
with the numbers expected to increase steadily.

But numbers of developers isn't everything.  Ken is right that
we did the Ada/Java work mostly because we found it new and interesting
and potentially profitable.  We didn't do a market survey first.

> LMTAS - "Our Brand Means Quality"
> For more info, see http://www.lmtas.com or http://www.lmco.com

-Tucker Taft   [log in to unmask]

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