How widespread is Ada now?

How widespread is Ada now?

[Steve Wampler]

I just completed a conversation with someone who made
some statements that surprised me a little.  Not knowing
much about this area, I'm appealing to you folks for
some verification.  (I'd rather not hear too many opinions
on this stuff - I have enough of my own.)

1. The DoD is now turning down bids by companies solely
   because they are not specifying Ada as the programming
   language.  (The particular example used was one
   involving a bid by a division of Honeywell.)

2. NASA, DoD, NBS (National Bureau of Standards) are all
   requiring Ada now (along with several other government
   agencies that I didn't take note of).

3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage.
   (I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.)

4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science
   program are pretty much assured of obtaining several
   million dollars of grant support to do so, and that
   this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program
   that has done so.

Well, what is the degree of truth in these statement?
I'm surprised by 3 because I haven't seen all that many
job ads requesting Ada, both on the Net and in magazines
such as Computer World.

There were other, similar, comments made, but I think the
above is enough for you to get the drift.

Please email me if possible, just to keep the flame wars
down some.
-- 
	Steve Wampler
	{....!arizona!naucse!sbw}

Re: How widespread is Ada now?

[Dave Goldblatt]

From article <917@naucse.UUCP>, by sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler):

> 1. The DoD is now turning down bids by companies solely
>    because they are not specifying Ada as the programming
>    language.  (The particular example used was one
>    involving a bid by a division of Honeywell.)

This is true.  For almost all _new_ DoD contracts (with VERY limited
exceptions), all software must be written in Ada using a DoD-approved
Ada compiler.  For the company I worked for this past summer, we had
to convert all of our Pascal source to Ada.  'Course, since Ada doesn't
support Curses internally, we had to use the good ol' PRAGMA directive
a few times.. :-)

Actually, one thought was to write everything in C, and have the Ada
program call the C code.  Unfortunately, I don't think DoD would be
too appreciative.

> 2. NASA, DoD, NBS (National Bureau of Standards) are all
>    requiring Ada now (along with several other government
>    agencies that I didn't take note of).

From what I understand, NASA "encourages" software to be written in
Ada, but it is NOT required.  Reason: Most Ada compilers simply produce
code which is too big and/or too slow.  Example: On 3 different Unix
compilers, a "Hello, world" program produced code ranging in size of
89.9K to 107K.  (not meant as a scientific example, so no flames please! :-)

> 3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage.
>    (I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.)

I don't know if it's THAT large, but in my experience, there is most
certainly a shortage.  In fact, is you have "Ada" listed on your resume,
you have very good odds of getting a job with a defense contractor..

> 4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science
>    program are pretty much assured of obtaining several
>    million dollars of grant support to do so, and that
>    this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program
>    that has done so.

This I haven't heard.  Then again, I can't think of any Ada-based computer
science programs off the top of my head either.

As an interesting note: a relative of mine went to a seminar given by one
of the members of the Ada design committee.  He opened with this:
"Ada was designed to be used for embedded systems software.  Of course,
you _can't_ use it for that, but..." :-)

Flames to /dev/null -- I actually started getting used to the language! :-)
(did anyone know that GNU Emacs has an Ada mode?)

-dg-
-- 

Internet: dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu    or:   dave@clutx.clarkson.edu
BITNET:   dave@CLUTX.Bitnet            uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!dave
Matrix:   Dave Goldblatt @ 1:260/360   ICBM: Why do you want to know? :-)

Re: How widespread is Ada now?

[Fred Hosch]

In article <917@naucse.UUCP>, sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler) writes:

> 4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science
>    program are pretty much assured of obtaining several
>    million dollars of grant support to do so, and that
>    this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program
>    that has done so.

The University of New Orleans has had an Ada-based cs program since
about '84, but they must be hiding their millions.

	Fred Hosch
	fred@cs.utexas.edu

Re: How widespread is Ada now?

[Charles Lord]

In the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, NASA and
DOD have not required ADA, but have been notably impressed with those
folks who DO use it.  In contrast, a co-worker just finished a 
project with Goddard that had all software written in QuickBASIC!

Has anyone seen a PD/Shareware/Cheap ADA compiler for learning
purposes?  As any commercial package must be DOD approved or
whatever, they tend to be *pricey*, but a learning version (a la)
TurboADA or QuickADA) could be fairly cheap and cost effective for
learning the language.  Janus/ADA is $129 but I'm looking even cheaper.
-- 
Charles Lord           ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl    Usenet
Cary, NC               cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu        Bitnet
#include <std.disclamers>
#include <cutsey.quote>

Re: How widespread is Ada now?

[Steven L. Baur]

in article <1378@sun.soe>, dave@sun.soe (Dave Goldblatt) says:
> Xref: spp2 comp.misc:3752 comp.lang.ada:1154

(Reason why nasa does not always require ada)

> Reason: Most Ada compilers simply produce
> code which is too big and/or too slow.  Example: On 3 different Unix
> compilers, a "Hello, world" program produced code ranging in size of
> 89.9K to 107K.

That is a very fair statement.  And, Ada code can run an order of magnitude
slower than equivalent "C" code.  (No flames, ask for the benchmark sources
and results).


(From Steven Wampler of Arizona:)
>> 3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage.
>>    (I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.)
> 
> I don't know if it's THAT large, but in my experience, there is most
> certainly a shortage.

If you want a job, apply at TRW with Ada experience on your resume.


> 
> As an interesting note: a relative of mine went to a seminar given by one
> of the members of the Ada design committee.  He opened with this:
> "Ada was designed to be used for embedded systems software.  Of course,
> you _can't_ use it for that, but..." :-)


My favorite is from a lecture from Dr. Ben Brosgol, Vice President of
Alsys who said "Ada doesn't support distributed applications very well".
Can you pronounce C3I?

steve

Re: How widespread is Ada now?

[Blair P. Houghton]

I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff.

				--Blair

Re: How widespread is Ada now?

[RICK CARLE]

In article <1039@buengc.BU.EDU>, bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
> I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff.
> 
1. Navy LCDR George Sullivan, speaking at the ACM SIGAda Summer '88
  Conference in Princeton NJ, said the Navy policy changed in 1985 from
  "standard hardware 1st" to "Ada 1st."  (I.e., "Damn the AN/UYKs and
  full speed ahead!")
2. The Navy has pressed forward with ALS/N, released it to the user
  community, and continued to improve it (thus solving the Ada AN/UYK
  problem).
3. Several defense contractors, including Raytheon, are working on
  important embedded Ada weapon systems for NAVSEA and NAVAIR.

       Rick Carle, rgc@raybed2.ray.com