gibian@turbo.RAY.COM (Marc Gibian SUD x 3393) (08/25/87)
The selection of programming language is something that most projects, and engineers, seem to take likely. Idealy, this choice involves consideration of all the various tradeoffs for the languages under consideration. The Ada language carries a large number of implications, more than usual due to the wide scope of the language and its Run Time Environment. Some of the negative factors that are incured by Ada are cost of toolset, size of generated code, newness (i.e. unreliability) of the toolset. I am by no means an advocate of Ada for all applications. (In fact, I am a strong voice in opposition to many of the standard -defense- ways of doing things are here at Raytheon). I think there are parts of Ada that are abysmal, and there are others that are quite fine. What I am saying is that the language to be used should be carefully considered. It should not be unconditionally chosen for every project. Specifically, while there are Ada compilers appearing for IBM/PCs, they are indeed very expensive items. Therefore, they are not for the casual user. Use c or some other cheep and widely available language if you can not support the cost of the compiler. Choose Ada if you can affort the cost, AND need it's features. -- Marc S. Gibian Senior Software Engineer SSL, Raytheon phone: (617) 440-3393 mail: gibian@turbo.ray.com or gibian@sud.ray.com