• Lower startup costs ($, personnel, tools)

  - Ada delivers more and thus costs more when only development costs are considered

• C++ gives programmers more freedom

  - Less discipline is attractive to programmers - dangerous on large systems

• No standard for C++

  - Ada vendors must meet standard - more difficult and more expensive

From the Script: SLIDE 18 - Why C++?

· It costs less to start a project using C++: programmers and tools are cheaper and more plentiful. Ada is a more sophisticated tool and does appear to cost more when only up-front costs are examined.

· C++ gives programmers more freedom. The language allows for rugged individualism and, therefore, all the danger that can come with it. Ada imposes discipline on the developer and safety on the development; it is, and will continue to be, unpopular with hackers.

· The most important surface advantage enjoyed by C++ is that there is no standard. The 18 different compiler vendors all operate on proprietary versions of the language and that means one company’s C++ is not necessarily portable to another’s C++ environment. [Guidelines, p. 5-11] Ada compiler vendors must submit their products to a detailed validation process in order to advertise and sell a standardized Ada compiler. This procedure ensures that software developed for Ada, for any given computer system, can be reused on other computer systems without significant re-development. [Guidelines, p.5-16]