Re: decline of Ada? - piffle

[Dave Wood <dpw@thomsoft.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.

Nonsense.  Anyone who develops code in Ada83/95 and cannot 
rapidly port that knowledge to C/C++ (or vice versa)
has no business calling themselves a software engineer
and are not worthy of re-employment.  

> 2) DoD Contractors will not build in Ada because you can't find
> trained coders to work for 24K to 32K per year.  

If you are willing to work for $24K, I don't want you on
my team.  Hell, I made more than that on my first job 16
years ago (FORTRAN, by the way).

> 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.

So, first you say that C is more in demand, and then that there
are a glut of C programmers.  Which is it?


> 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.

If you do not *know* another language your college professors 
ought to be fired.  If you are *unable* to learn another 
language, you ought to be fired.  Nothing you have said
supports the assertion that "there is no place to go", nor is
there evidence that these words are indicative of "wisdom".

> 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.

Have you tried lately to get top-notch C/Windows programmers?

$$$$$$$$$ very expensive and hard to recruit $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Does this mean that Windows and/ or C is dead?  Or is your
threshhold of quality so much lower that you'll take the
cheapest hack who comes along?


> 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.

Certainly this is not a rare event, but it is by no means 
universal either.  Believe it or not, some organizations
use Ada because they like it, not because they have to.

> 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".

Maybe a lesson in resume writing would be of value.  I've
never removed Ada from my resume (any more than I would
remove any other relevant bit of information), and I've
never had trouble getting job offers, for Ada jobs, C jobs,
or jobs having nothing to do with a particular language.

Now, I wouldn't recommend that your Objective line should say
"I want to live and breath Ada every day, and no other language
or thing can fulfill my life."  More valuable would be to say
that you are looking for a challenging position in <whatever>,
and by the way you are neither concerned about, nor in fear
of, the particular implementation language.

-- Dave Wood
-- Product Manager, ObjectAda for Windows
-- Aonix - "Ada with an Attitude"
-- http://www.aonix.com