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Date: 26 May 93 21:20:58 GMT
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!overload.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.o
hio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!The-Star.honeywell.com!saifr00.cfsat.honeywe
ll.com!shanks@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Mark Shanks)
Subject: Re: Emb.Sys.Prog survey shows Ada being used negligibly
Message-ID: <1993May26.212058.5091@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <1993May26.151446.22220@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael
 Feldman) writes:
>My friends in the academies tell me that the ignorance of, and sometimes
>hostility to, Ada among students and faculty is not terribly different
>in the academies than elsewhere. The same reasons are given: lousy
>and overpriced tools compared to other languages, clunkiness of the
>type system, irrelevance of Ada to the rest of the world. 

Oh, brother, to think that I learned ALGOL when I should have been
taught COBOL or FORTRAN IV! Well, it just goes to show ya!
(Once again, the SNL crabby old man voice):

When I was a cadet, no one gave a damn what software language was
being taught because we were all going to be shit-hot PILOTS and
fly those neat JETS when we graduated. If another cadet started
talking about the clunkiness of the TYPE system and the overpriced
TOOOOOOOLS involved, he (and I don't mean he/she) would have been
immediately and forever nicknamed "Geek-a-tron" or "Pencil-Neck"
(instead of something really cool like "Maverick") and made to 
carry everyone else's boxes of punch cards around (you remember
those, I'm sure). As that illustrious leader of men and our
beloved commandant, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Jr., once told my class,
"At least you'll be able to tell your sons that you didn't spend
four years contemplating your navel under the yum-yum tree at
Cream Puff U."

Back to your regular poster:

The academies have the duty to teach Ada. Period. And from what I've
seen, at least Capt. Cook at the AFA is doing so, and offering a free
two week seminar on Ada for the last few summers, so I guess THEY
have the faculty and tools to continue teaching it. If the academies
don't want to support it because of its irrelevance to the rest
of the world, the next thing you know, cadets will stop: spending hours
shining their shoes, getting a haircut every week, dressing up
in those famous Cecil B. DeMille (quite literally) outfits, and all
the other things cadets do that are irrelevant to the rest of the
world. What would happen then? ;>
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| Mark "Still having AFA flashbacks" Shanks |                 
| Principal Engineer                        |    All opinions mine,  
| 777 Displays                              |        of course.
| shanks@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com        |          
| "We have such sights to show you..."      |            
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