Re: decline of Ada?

[Ken Garlington <garlingtonke@lmtas.lmco.com>]

JBisaillon wrote:
> 
> I am not sure what the exact thread is here, I have a sense of what
> it might be.  Let me shed some light on a few realities.
> 
> 1) If you are an Ada programmer, you had better pray that you don't
> get downsized.  All that training, years of experience, are virtually
> worthless unless you can find another DoD Contractor
> doing Ada.

False. I know several Ada programmers who were downsized with the cancellation
of the A-12 program. They were in high demand.

> 2) DoD Contractors will not build in Ada because you can't find
> trained coders to work for 24K to 32K per year.  But you can find "C"
> coders.  Therefore, if you want the contract, you cut the cost and
> program it in "C".  It really has very little to do with the language,
> its advantages, or disadvantages.  It has to do with dollars.

False. We have several new program starts hiring Ada programmers. For
that matter, we used Ada on projects before the so-called "Ada
Mandate" was ever created. In one competition, we used Ada extensively;
our competitor did not. We won. Did Ada help? I don't know. However,
clearly you can compete with Ada.

> Just a few words of wisdom for Ada coders.  There is no place to go.
> If you do not know another language, kiss you butt good bye.

See above.

> I've been building systems, primarily Naval systems for about 15 years.
> You can not code a system in Ada and be cost competitive.  I can get
> two or three good "C" coders, X-Windows coders at the price of one Ada
> programmer.

What SEI level are you?

> The government will tell you to code in Ada, and every Contractor who
> is willing to work the job, will submit a waiver to do the system in
> "C".  As a result, by default it is not done in Ada.

False. (In fact, there's about 50 million lines of Ada that prove you
wrong.)

> I've been specifically told, "If you want a job, remove the "Ada" word
> from your resume".  I've been told by others that only "DoD
> people do Ada, and DoD people are not productive".

You've been specifically lied to. :)

On a related subject, our web site now has job listings. We don't always
use Ada in the job pre-requisites, but many of the positions are for Ada
programmers. (If you're a good programmer, but don't know Ada, don't worry.
We can train you.)

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