"No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

"No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[Gregory Aharonian]

     The month of December is a slowing hiring month in the Boston area with
the holidays and all.  However, things tend to pick up at the new year, and
the first Sunday Boston Globe after the New Year's has a special Help Wanted
section two to three times larger than usual, with tons of help wanted ads
from companies all over the New England area doing substantial hiring. What
follows are counts of programming language mentions in these ads for the
January 8, 1995 issue.  In short, out of hundreds of new jobs reflecting new
and ongoing corporate efforts, NO ONE IS HIRING ADA.

EMC [computer storage]                 18 C/C++, 3 VHDL
Cabletron Systems [networking]         20 C/C++
DEC                                    10 C/C++
3Com [networking]                      17 C/C++, 2 VHDL
SHL Systemhouse                         1 C/C++, 1 Oracle
Raytheon/XYPLEX                        12 C/C++
Interchange Online Network              2 C/C++, 1 Visual Basic
Corporate Software                      3 C/C++, 1 Visual Basic
Voicetek                                5 C/C++
Interactive Data                        2 C/C++, 1 Cobol
FTP Software                           11 C/C++
Fidelity Investments                   15 C/C++, 3 Visual Basic
Ektron Applied Imaging                  7 C/C++
Martin Marietta                         6 C/C++
Delphi Internet                         5 C/C++
Analog Devices                          2 C/C++
Transparent Language                    2 C/C++
Network General                         1 C/C++
Natural Microsystems                    2 C/C++
Webster Industries [plastics]                    1 Cobol
STAPLES                                          3 Oracle, 1 RPG
Project Software & Development          2 C/C++, 1 Oracle, 1 Visual Basic
Inspex [imaging systems]                1 C/C++
Private Healthcare                      1 C/C++, 1 Oracle
Advanced Visual Systems                10 C/C++
Investors Bank & Trust                           8 Cobol
Brigham & Women's Hospital              2 C/C++, 2 SAS
MedAccess                               3 C/C++, 3 Visual Basic
Kronos                                  4 C/C++, 2 Oracle
Progress Software                                3 Oracle
D&B Software                            4 C/C++
Siemens Nixdorf                         2 C/C++
New England Funds                                1 Visual Basic
Arthur D Little                         1 C/C++
Eaton                                   1 C/C++
MARCAM Corporation                               2 RPG
NESLAB                                  1 C/C++, 1 RPG
Boston Stock Exchange                   3 C/C++
IDX [health care]                       2 C/C++, 4 Mumps
Lightbridge [communications]            9 C/C++
IBM Personal Computer                   1 C/C++
Programart Corporation                  2 C/C++
Chrysalis [EDA]                         4 C/C++, 2 VHDL
MKS Instruments                         1 C/C++, 2 RPG
Cardiac Pacemakers                      4 C/C++
Hewlett Packard                         6 C/C++
Andover Controls                        3 C/C++
Harte-Hanks Data Technologies           2 C/C++
Sun Microsystems                       20 C/C++
Sybase                                  8 C/C++
Childrens's Hospital                    2 C/C++, 1 Oracle
BBN                                     7 C/C++
Sapient                                 4 C/C++
Tufts University                                 1 SPSS
Boston Biostatistics                             2 SAS
MicroFocus                              1 C/C++
Grand Circle Travel                              1 RPG
Boston Globe                            1 C/C++, 1 Cobol
ISI Systems [insurance]                          4 Cobol
Edgewater Technology [client/server]    2 C/C++, 1 Cobol
Analog Devices                                   1 VHDL
Thinking Machines                      12 C/C++, 2 Fortran
Colonial Mutual Funds                            1 Cobol
ASTEA [software]                        3 C/C++, 2 Visual Basic
Marshalls                                        1 Cobol, 1 Oracle, 1 RPG
National Medical Care                            2 Cobol
Addison-Wesley Publishing               1 C/C++
Federal Home Loan Bank                           1 Visual Basic
Interactive Process Control             2 C/C++
Kurzweil AI                             2 C/C++
Software Quality Partners               5 C/C++
Versyss [healthcare]                    3 C/C++, 1 Oracle
M/A-COM                                 1 C/C++, 1 VHDL
Compuserve                              2 C/C++
Loral Advanced Simulation               1 C/C++
Loral Data Systems                      4 C/C++
Synetics                                2 C/C++, 2 Oracle, 2 Cobol
Massachusetts General Hospital                   1 SAS
Fenwal Safety Systems                            1 ROG
Thayer Scale                            1 C/C++
Boffo Games                             3 C/C++
First Data [health care]                2 C/C++
QC Optics                                        1 Forth
Marathon Technologies                   3 C/C++
CVS Pharmacy                                     1 Cobol
NOVA Biomedical                         2 C/C++
AVNET                                            1 VHDL
Rensselaer Polytechnic                  1 C/C++

Let's add it up:                      315 C/C++, 23 Cobol, 8 VHDL, 8 RPG

BUT NO ADA.  These companies are a good cross section of the New England
economy, many (formerly) involved with defense work, and yet not one is
hiring an Ada programmers (or buying Ada products).  Tons of C/C++, a variety
of other languages, but no Ada.  Examinations of help wanted ads in other
cities around the US will reveal similar patterns.  LITTLE TO NO ADA.
Sure there are non-advertised jobs hiring Ada that won't appear in the papers,
but there are orders more non-advertised jobs hiring C/C++.  No matter how
delusional you are about Ada's successes, these type of national samplings
cannot be dismissed.  LITTLE TO NO ADA WHERE PEOPLE ARE FREE TO CHOOSE.

I don't know who the DoD is paying to design and generate its current survey
results, but what I see published differs greatly from what circulates in the
Mandated world, for example:

   The November 14 issue of Informationweek had an article starting on page
   91 on programmer retraining, as companies wean employees off of legacy
   technologies.  On page 98 they had a chart of today's hot jobs:

		C++ applications developers		HOTTEST
		Sybase database developer
		Solaris systems administrator
		Windows applications developer
		Heterogeneous systems administrator
		Oracle database developer
		Object-oriented design architect
		Object-oriented development project manager
		Smalltalk applications developer
		C applications developer		HOT

followed on page 102 on demand for programming language experience:

		HIGH DEMAND		LOW DEMAND
		C++			Basic
		C			Pascal
		Smalltalk		Ada
		Visual C++		Cobol
		Visual Basic		Fortran
					Assembler

    In light of these trends, all of the cute ideas floating around SIGAda
and Tri-Ada and AJPO and the upcoming Ada Summit, not only are ten years
too late, but also will produce microeconomically insignficant gains in
market share for Ada.

    There is way too much momentum built up for C/C++, along with the inertia
behind Cobol, for cute ideas to help Ada gain much market share, especially
when so-called Ada vendors like Rational and Alsys sell tools with the line
that with their tools "you can be as productive with C++ as with Ada". And if
you don't believe me, read on (from January 1995 Advanced Systems, page 8,
Letters to the Editor):
	Chuck Musciano's "Software Tools" column suggests that I'd
	better switch to C++ from C real quick.  Well, now!  I've
	been involved in development of the most demanding real-time
	trading systems in New York for three years.  Interestingly
	enough, I manage with the help of plain old C and some great
	GUI builders like those from TeleUSE [i.e. Alsys] and Sybase.
	I look good, and most important, I deliver.

Won't switch from C to C++ thanks to Alsys' tools.  Well, how do you expect
to switch them from C to Ada?  I think not.  As long as Ada vendors make their
tools available to non-Ada programmers they will take away many of the reasons
people use to justify switching languages. Such dual-language sales strategies
maybe good for Rational's and Alsys's bottom line, but lousy for increasing
Ada's market share.

                                   ==========

No venture capitalist looking at such statistics is going to want to invest
the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars needed to create a viable Ada
industry with significant market share.

It is obvious that the current Ada vendors don't have the tens and hundreds
of millions of dollars needed, and even if they did, they have shown little
interest in promoting and advertising Ada.  I can't remember the last time
I saw an advertisment for an Ada compiler in any of the software engineering
journals, especially an ad that had prices, an ad similar in quality and
frequency to Intermetrics' C compiler ads.  I mean how pathetic is the Ada
industry?  The February 1995 has a great article on Ada for Windows, and yet
no one Ada compiler vendor has an ad in the magazine for interested readers
to know how to contact the vendors.  A fantastic opportunity blown by the
Ada vendors.

Forget about the third party Ada components vendors for investing in Ada.
Thanks to still untreated DoD procurement regulations and miserly defense
contractors they don't exist to help promote and market Ada.

So all that leaves for investing the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars
that Ada needs is the DoD.  The DoD caused all of these problems with their
mismanagement of Ada programs and policies for the last ten years, squandering
the hundreds of millions of dollars that Ada now needs to be anything more
than a non-niche language, contracting out Ada projects to hypocrites and
people with no experience in trying to do "commercial" things with Ada.

And if the DoD isn't going to invest to this level in Ada using people who
have a clue, then get rid of the Ada Mandate because this country's national
security should not be held hostage to gougers exploiting a language that
this country and the majority of the DoD has ignored for most everything else,
including many projects as large scale, real time demanding, and mission
critical as anything being done with Ada.

Greg Aharonian

Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[Mark S. Hathaway]

> In article <D25q2M.9rq@world.std.com>,
> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
> 
>      The month of December is a slowing hiring month in the Boston area with
> the holidays and all.  However, things tend to pick up at the new year, and
> the first Sunday Boston Globe after the New Year's has a special Help Wanted
> section two to three times larger than usual, with tons of help wanted ads
> from companies all over the New England area doing substantial hiring. What
> follows are counts of programming language mentions in these ads for the
> January 8, 1995 issue.  In short, out of hundreds of new jobs reflecting new
> and ongoing corporate efforts, NO ONE IS HIRING ADA.
> 
> Greg Aharonian

First IBM, then Microsoft and now C/C++

What dark force cast this evil spell on the software world?

How superior do the alternatives have to be for the spell to be broken?

How long must we endure?


 
Mark S. Hathaway       <hathawa2@marshall.edu>

Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[Kent Mitchell]

Gregory Aharonian (srctran@world.std.com) wrote:

[long list on advertisers deleted]
: BUT NO ADA.  These companies are a good cross section of the New England
: economy, many (formerly) involved with defense work, and yet not one is
: hiring an Ada programmers (or buying Ada products). 

I don't know how anything you presented shows people are not buying Ada
products.  Rational had a very good quarter in New England.

[more of the usual deleted]
: As long as Ada vendors make their
: tools available to non-Ada programmers they will take away many of the reasons
: people use to justify switching languages. Such dual-language sales strategies
: maybe good for Rational's and Alsys's bottom line, but lousy for increasing
: Ada's market share.

One more time ... Rational and Alysy are in business to MAKE MONEY
for our shareholders.  Everything else is a very distant second.  While we
feel it is important to produce high quality products to improve customer
satisfaction which will result in further sales (i.e. money), if we really
thought we could make more money in the long run buy selling sacks of
fertilizer we would certainly look at it.  Wake up and smell the coffee, if
you had worried more about your profitability you might still be in
business as well.

--
Kent Mitchell                   | One possible reason that things aren't
Technical Consultant            | going according to plan is .....
Rational Software Corporation   | that there never *was* a plan!

Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[David Emery]

As a long time stockholder in Rational Software Corporation and
previously Verdix (I bought my first Verdix stock in '84 or '85), I
can appreciate the emphasis on 'making money'.  But, I do NOT think
that this attitude is the way to win in the long run.

Business schools seem to teach techniques for optimizing short-term
returns, with the goal of short term increases in profitability and
stock price.  ("Jack up the price, then cash in your chips.")  This
has resulted in an over-emphasis on short term returns on investment,
at the expense of building long-term market share.  

I think that the Ada compiler industry has been guilty of trying to
recoup profits too quickly, and thereby charging too much for its
entry-level products.  

Then, an even greater sin, my experience is that the compiler vendors
then short-change product support, taking the resources and placing
them into new ventures.  The net result is a portfolio of
poorly-supported, buggy products, that do not "make friends and
influence people".

A related problem that I've seen from some vendors is a sense of "we
know more than you do", with tools and marketing approaches that
emphasize the vendor's solution at the expense of the customer's
needs.  Or, in other words, the vendor says "You can only write
software our way, and you have to pay us a lot of $$ for all these
tools we think you should be using."  (Sounds like IBM, Wang and DEC
before those companies hit the rocks.)

Maybe I'm starting to whine like GA, but there are occasions when even
GA hits on a grain of truth.

I saw my investment in Verdix and Rational as a long-term investment,
but ended up selling most of my shares when it became clear that the
corporate approach was to maximize short-term results.  I still retain
some Verdix/Rational shares, if nothing else than as a memento of what
could have been...  Maybe software company stocks will become
collectors items like RR stocks are now...

				dave
--
--The preceeding opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
--The MITRE Corporation or its sponsors. 
-- "A good plan violently executed -NOW- is better than a perfect plan
--  next week"                                      George Patton
-- "Any damn fool can write a plan.  It's the execution that gets you
--  all screwed up"                              James Hollingsworth
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[Robert Dewar]

Dave Emery says:

"I think that the Ada compiler industry has been guilty of trying to
recoup profits too quickly, and thereby charging too much for its
entry-level products.

Hmm! there are a lot of investors in Ada companies who sure don't see it
that way, since they lost their shirts. Maybe the vendors were trying to
recoup their profits too quickly, but they sure did not succeed!

The accusation would be more credible if there were examples of Ada
vendors making big profits!

Now one may disagree with the pricing levels, that's a different discussion
based on the perception of the elasticity of the market. If it is really
the case that charging $200 instead of $2000 would have multiplied Ada
users by a factor of 20, then of course the pricing was set wrong. But
that's an argument we have gone through many times before. If the market
really is that elastic, then the availability of GNAT should presumably
greatly increase the number of Ada users, which is certainly the hope!

Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[Alexy Khrabrov]

In article <3eumvc$b4@rational.rational.com> kdm@puppy.rational.com (Kent Mitche
ll) writes:
>Gregory Aharonian (srctran@world.std.com) wrote:
>[long list on advertisers deleted]
>: BUT NO ADA.
>One more time ... Rational and Alysy are in business to MAKE MONEY
>for our shareholders.  Everything else is a very distant second.  While we
>feel it is important to produce high quality products to improve customer
>satisfaction which will result in further sales (i.e. money), if we really
>thought we could make more money in the long run buy selling sacks of
>fertilizer we would certainly look at it.  Wake up and smell the coffee, if
>you had worried more about your profitability you might still be in
>business as well.
>
Kent, with this nice kind of the ideal, imprinted in your souls, one'll
be better off selling the latter to the Satan!  :)  See, it's _the
best_ deal in the spirit you convey: you get unlimited support
directly from Hell, toll-free service ``WitchQuestion'' (sic), your full
life-and-death cycle support ``LowestCircles,'' and if you'll
subscribe by a promotional deadline, you also get the best
unsticking frying pan in the end of the cycle!

--
        Alexy V. Khrabrov <khrabrov@cccc.com>
        ``Age Quod Agis'' (Do what you're doing.)

Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[Robert Dewar]

Kent, I think your position is perfectly reasonable, and I have always
supported the idea that diversification by Ada companies helps rather
than hurts Ada.

Still, you don't have to be Greg Aharonian to be a little disappointed when
Rational works so hard to hide its Ada connections at trade shows. FOr
example, at the Object Expo in New York last summer, Rational had a huge
booth with absolutely no mention of Ada anywhere at all.

That's carrying things a little far I think ...