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Subject:
From:
"Matthew S. Whiting" <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sun, 5 Apr 1998 16:01:22 -0400
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Most of Nasser's insulting, useless and self-aggrandizing drivel snipped
for brevity.

> > In short, make the product useful to the end-user and usable with little
> > difficulty and aggravation, and your language, Ada 95 or whatever, will be
> > accepted.
>
> for you, useful sounds like someone comming and hand feed  you one
> instruction at a time. You say that you know nothing about Ada, and then
> you say you want it to be more usable and less difficult. I guess
> anything without a GUI for you is hard?
>
> >
> >         David Fisher
> >         Chief Engineer
> >         Fisher Research Corporation
> >         Rochester, New York
> >       the system. If
> you find this is too technical I really have no idea why you are in the
> real-time emmbeded programming field.  Try compiling DOS if you do not
> like something in it and see how far you can go.
>
> >Or being told that you are
> > free to use the $99 language compiler, providing that you first agree to a
> > $1,000 a month support contract?
>
>
> THis is plain wrong. Who told you you need to buy a support contract to
> use GNAT? this is so silly.
>
> >
> > In short, make the product useful to the end-user and usable with little
> > difficulty and aggravation, and your language, Ada 95 or whatever, will be
> > accepted.
>
> for you, useful sounds like someone comming and hand feed  you one
> instruction at a time. You say that you know nothing about Ada, and then
> you say you want it to be more usable and less difficult. I guess
> anything without a GUI for you is hard?
>
> >
> >         David Fisher
> >         Chief Engineer
> >         Fisher Research Corporation
> >         Rochester, New York
> >         [log in to unmask]
> >         716 328 4230
> >         fax 328 1984
>
>
> Nasser
>

You can argue that we all should be using compilers that require a
command line interface like in the "good old days", but the reality is
that IDEs are here to stay and MOST software engineers like this
environment.  MS has proved pretty well that people use what they like
even if the quality is less than something they don't like.  I can
empathize with David as I have the same problem in the engineering group
that I manage.  The engineers simply like using the MS development suite
and the MFC, etc., and Ada doesn't yet offer anything equivalent.  And
hurling insults at people contemplating Ada does absolutely nothing to
help this situation.  The reality is that using VC++ with some "band
aid" utilities such as bounds checkers, software that is very reliable
can be generated.  I think Ada is a better tool and certainly doesn't
need the band-aids, but VC++ with the band aids does a pretty credible
job for those areas that aren't life or safety critical ... and this
covers the vast majority of software that is written today.

I'm sorry, Nasser, that you don't want to promulgate Ada.  But is your
sense of self-worth so small that you feel the need to insult someone
else just to deter them from using Ada?

Matt

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