At 10:15 AM 12/15/98 -0500, Jeff Burns wrote:
>You and several other people have said that a language perceived as
>great for safety critical applications won't even be considered for
>non-safety critical applications.

>Why is that?

>Do you think there is a perception that there's a lot of extra
>overhead or difficulty in using a "safety critical" language?

    Because the perception in the "commercial software" market is that time
to market is the critical factor.  If you don't sell that, they won't buy.

>If we can identify the obstacle, it may be possible to add some kind
>of bridging statement that will help people make the desired
>connection that if Ada's good for safety critical applications it'll
>be great  for conventional applications that have to be reliable
>(which means virtually every application).

    How about:

    Which is more critical to you, starting coding, or shipping working
software as soon as possible?  When schedule is critical, use the best
langauge for critical software: Ada.

     Actually, another selling tool (but not for everyone) would be to push
a rapid prototyping tool that allows you to transition easily to Ada.

                                        Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...