Re: F-22 ADA Programming

[Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com>]

> Anyway, I think Bob is right that it shouldn't make a difference--a competent programmer should be able to switch to a new language (or OS or platform or toolset) fairly easily.

Except that very few will want to.

The problem is - once you are competent you are recognized as a senior or expert and this recognition has a value - both in terms of peer relations and on the job market. Why would such a person "switch" to some other language? To become a novice again? To write in his CV that instead of having (let's say) 8 years of Java experience, he has only 1 year in Ada? And what is the value of such CV if nobody is looking for Ada programmers anyway? Isn't it better to have N+1 years of Java experience instead?

I have seen the "switching" argument many times (and based on merit alone, I fully agree with it), but it misses a very important factor: that of career continuity. Switching might be easy in terms of intellectual investment, but at the same time pointless from the ROI point of view, because the job market values continuous experience - that is, an expert with N years of experience is valued more than a guy who is a beginner in N technologies and apparently cannot decide on his career path.

There is a reason why Scala gets popular - it allows a relatively continuous migration from Java, and many Java programmers see this as a *safe* career opportunity. Unfortunately this is what Ada does not offer.

-- 
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.msobczak.com * http://www.inspirel.com