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Subject:
From:
Wesley Groleau <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Wesley Groleau <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 14 Jan 1999 11:08:04 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (55 lines)
This is a re-posting on behalf of someone else.  It is being sent this way to
protect the reputation
of the company involved.

My contact says:

> This is the type of stuff we're fighting here.  The next
> e-mail contains my response.  If you any specific suggestions
> to debunk some of this, feel free to let me know and I'll pass
> them on.

And this is what he received, that he passed on to me:

> I realize this was not solicited from me but I'd like to provide
> you with my professional opinion regarding the selection of the
>  programming language for [project].  I don't want to bore you
>  with a lot of technical pros and cons regarding this issue, but
>  I strongly believe that you can do the job cheaper and quicker
>  if you use c/c++.  This choice makes a lot of sense for several
>  important reasons.

> First, if the OS is Solaris or HP-UX, you will get for free a very
>  extensive set of c libraries for free.  These will include
>  everything from math libraries to interprocess communications
>  facilities to memory management functions.  My experience with
>  Ada is that the compilers, support libraries, and tools will
>  always lag behind what is available for c, especially in the
>  Unix environment.  You can expect that things which could be
>  implemented in c very easily will be very difficult if not
>  impossible with Ada.  Workarounds will be required.  And, it
>  will be necessary to use assembly language with Ada in time-
> critical areas.  Performance requirements will more easily be
> met using c since c compilers generate more compact code, and
> the programmer has more control over the resultant machine code
> that is generated.

> Second, the evolution of c to c++ has eleviated many of the
> government's concerns which originally drove the development
> of Ada as a separate language.  In particular, c++ is now a
> fully object-oriented language.  As a consequence, the government
> is no longer requiring Ada on many (most?) programs.  And, if we
> use Rational Rose, using its code generation capabilities it may
> be possible to auto-generate a significant number of coding modules
> in c with Rose.  I don't believe Rose can generate Ada code.

> Third, although in this business we have a some people who have
>  familiarity with Ada, the rest of the programming world is using c.
> It will be easier to find people with the requisite programming
>  skills if we use c, and to interest them in working on the project.
> Programmers will always prefer c to Ada.

> Having said that, the job can be done in Ada if necessary.  However,
> unless it is a hard requirement for doing so, I recommend that c be
> employed.

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