wdence@NSWC-WO.ARPA (Walter Dence) (01/13/91)
Stability for Embedded Applications?
Last year we let a contract for a system of several units,
some of which contain 80286 CPU's. We required Ada and the
contractor purchased and is now using an Ada cross compiler. Now
we are preparing to receive the system and are purchasing a cross
compiler and an in-circuit emulator "identical" to his for
evaluation and maintenance of the system.
A stub has just come to my desk for $37,000.00. Our host is
to be an 80286 machine.
But, the shocking price is not my only concern.
The software purchased by our contractor was validated under
the 1.10 Ada validation suite. That compiler is not on the Jan
91 Ada validation list. Should we buy a 1.10 compiler? Is it
now for sale? Is it Ada anymore? Should our contractor upgrade
his to 1.11?
We expect to test and validate this system over a period of
many years. Then it will be maintained, modified, and upgraded
for many more. Possibly 25 years or more. Will the 1.10 product
be available for 25 years? Will it be Ada now that it is off of
the validation list? Should we upgrade with each new validation
suite? What about our expensive field testing and laboratory
testing? It now looks like we may go through 40 Ada validation
versions over the life cycle of this system. Will Ada ever hold
still long enough for us to validate and certify our system?
Will our Ada vendor be in business? Will he still be
revalidating for cross compilation to an 80286? (With his
pricing, I have my doubts.) How much will he be charging for
each upgrade to his $37.000.00 PC-based compiler?
I have studied, followed, and advocated Ada for 15 years,
and now at last my organization has committed to it. But, now I
feel like a fool. People look me in the eye now and ask, What
happened? Where is the promised stability of Ada? Our
compilers disappear with each Ada validation update list.
Assembly language and Turbo Pascal were our old workhorses. They
were easy to use, affordable, and with PC's, very efficient,
effective, and stable.
What do I do now? What do I say? What is Ada in view of the
disappearing compilers from the updated validation lists? Where
is stability? Can anyone explain or justify this?
Why in the world do we all put up with all the problems of
Ada in this conference if it is not stable? And how did things
go so wrong in our Ada community to result in this unbelievable
pricing for a compiler and in-circuit emulator on a very popular
industry-standard PC hosted onto a very popular industry-standard
target?
DISCLAIMER: This is personal opinion, not official opinion.g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu ((George C. Harrison) Norfolk State University) (01/17/91)
In article <9101130210.AA02405@NSWC-WO.ARPA>, wdence@NSWC-WO.ARPA (Walter Dence) writes: > Stability for Embedded Applications? [lots of stuff deleted] >We required Ada and the > contractor purchased and is now using an Ada cross compiler. Now > we are preparing to receive the system and are purchasing a cross > compiler and an in-circuit emulator "identical" to his for > evaluation and maintenance of the system. > > A stub has just come to my desk for $37,000.00. Our host is > to be an 80286 machine. > > But, the shocking price is not my only concern. $37,000 is a lot of dough if you are doing this by yourself; however, if you make this investment and spend say $4,000 a year for upgrades including into the new validation suite, it certainly should be reasonable. That is LESS than the cost of hiring ONE good programmer for one year. Too many companies will invest maga bucks in personnel and do not want to spend money on making their work MUCH more efficient. An anology - if you want a hammer to use on a major project in your home, where to you buy it? At K-Mart for $6.59 or at Sears (Craftsman) for $35.99 for a life-time guarantee.... Sure Turbo Pasqual is virtually free and is easy to work, but you are in a different sort of application to be maintained over a LONG time. You, frankly, make it sound like that if a compiler disappears temporarily (as did most) from the validation list, all the executable images will suddenly go on strike. > Why in the world do we all put up with all the problems of > Ada in this conference if it is not stable? And how did things > go so wrong in our Ada community to result in this unbelievable > pricing for a compiler and in-circuit emulator on a very popular > industry-standard PC hosted onto a very popular industry-standard > target? What problems in the conference?? Sorry, if this all sounds like a flame, but I really believe that this kind of thinking is fairly typical in parts of the Ada community and is wrong-headed. George.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- George C. Harrison -------------- || -- Overworked, Underpaid, -------- ---|| Professor of Computer Science || -- Unappreciated, but enjoying --- ---|| Norfolk State University, ---- || -- it all. ----------------------- ---|| 2401 Corprew Avenue, Norfolk, Virginia 23504 ----------------------- ---|| INTERNET: g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu --------------------------------- -- || These are not necessarily the views of my employer, my family, or -- || even myself.
eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) (01/18/91)
First, many compilers disappeared from the list when 1.10
validations expired due to the fact that this time all the validations
expired the same day.
Second, the issue of validation policy was discussed at the last
Ada Board meeting. As far as I know the AJPO has not acted on the
resulting recommendations, but it will probably result in 1.11
validations being good forever (or for at least as long as Ada 1983 is
still supported).
Third (and possibly most important), there is a concept of
project validation, which basically says that THIS is the compiler we
are using on this project, and is the only valid compiler (and
version) until a decision is made to upgrade. Sounds like what your
project should do (or should have done...)
Now to the subject of price: Ada compiler pricing has gone
through several stragtegies, but seems to have settled down now. If
you don't charge for run-time licenses (and most compiler vendors now
don't) then you may sell one or two compilers for an embedded project
where the final program will run on thousands of machines. So the
developer of compilers for embedded systems has to recover his costs
from a small onesie-twosie market.
Compilers for PC-ATs and compatibles (also 80286 of course) on
the other hand, have a larger market because virtually every
programmer gets his own copy. Prices for these compilers are now
under $500. Supply and demand at work. How much was the in-circut
emulator you bought? Or the symbolic debugger? The price for those
has nothing to do with the programming language you use, but for the
same marketing reasons prices are just as high.
--
Robert I. Eachus
When the dictators are ready to make war upon us, they will not
wait for an act of war on our part." - Franklin D. Rooseveltrosen@meduse.enst.fr (Jean Pierre Rosen) (01/19/91)
Are you serious when you say things were easier with Turbo-Pascal? Certainly no problem with different versions of the validation, there is no validation... just new versions of the language appearing every year or so, with incompatibilities (do you remember upgrading from V3.0 to V4.0? It still hurts!). And will Borland exist for the next 40 years? You'd better hope so, because there is no alternate vendor for Turbo-Pascal! There is only one Ada language, and all versions of the ACVC test this same language; 1.11 has just more tests than 1.10. No other language is so strictely controlled, so uniform, so validated or has so many compilers second sources. It does not mean there is no risk for the future: it just means that the risks are order of magnitude lower than with any other language. J-P. Rosen ADALOG