Geoff Bull wrote: > > I am surprised by your defeatist attitude. > For better or worse, Richard Conn is right about trying to compete with Microsoft on its main turf. Believing that Ada can have an impact on mainstream PC development these days is like believing that the Pricipality of Liechtenstein can mount a successful land invasion of the United States. MS will continue to be unassailable on the PC for at least another decade, whatever the final outcome of the 'monopoly' trial and in spite of the zooming stock price of RedHat. On the "server" side of the internet, the situation is not as bleak, but almost. Entrenched forces and billion dollar investments there ensure that the development of that software will be done for the most part using the "mainstream" languages. Unlike Richard Conn, however, I don't think I'm whistling Dixie when I say that Ada can be a player in the *real-time* market -- the larger bubble in the Venn diagram that includes the 'safety-critical' circle. The reasons are that the real-time market is not so well-defined as the one for PC applications, and that Ada has at least a sliver of mind-share in "real-time software". "Grand schemes" of developing Ada replacements for Windows and/or Linux should be discarded. The Ada Dream -- all software in the world well-designed, coded and commented in pure Ada -- is long dead. "Success" for Ada now means (1) making sure that it stays in use for current projects (a considerable task in itself); (2) seeing to it that it continues to be chosen for future projects in its own current domain -- safety-critical systems; and (3) expanding into some other subsectors of the real-time market. The last of these is crucial because it has the most significant potential for *growth*. I don't think the 'safety-critical' market has the growth curve Ada needs to thrive. Any other here-and-there usages of Ada are pure serendipity. Meaning that there will be no sustainable *economy* in those areas. This does not mean that if you want to create a great new application for the internet that you can't or shouldn't do it in Ada. It just means that if it's a programming product -- one that requires its users code in Ada -- it is doomed. Even Liechtenstein knows better than to mount its canons at the US border. Stanley Allen mailto:[log in to unmask]