From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,2702c1ed8be62863 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Marin David Condic Subject: Re: Ada rotting? (was: What ada 83 compiler is *best*) Date: 1998/12/07 Message-ID: <366C2564.1C17E3EE@pwfl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 419721198 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: condicma@nameserver.pwfl.com References: <366822F5.D80741EE@XXX_nospam_stelnj.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Pratt & Whitney Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: diespammer@pwfl.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-12-07T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Rick Thorne wrote: > > My question too, sir. > > Like the rest of you, I have a mortgage to pay and children to feed. I > also want to retire in the next 10-15 years (I'm 40). I really want to be > where the action is, and I'm simply unconvinced that Ada's doing anything > but going away. Can ANYONE offer me anything to the contrary? I'm > sincerely interested in hearing otherwise. I'm an experienced Ada man who > has moved on to the lush, green (if ugly) C++ Pastures and I'm grazing > blissfully in the Javalands as well. I don't see the demand for these > languages doing anything but increasing, and I see nothing but the > opposite for Ada. Can ANYONE offer me evidence to the contrary? > To a large extent, the destiny of Ada is what we make of it. We can stand around complaining that big companies with project managers who know very little about languages make choices for lower quality languages instead of Ada. *OR* We can just go off and start building things in Ada and making them available until it starts to generate its critical mass needed for a long and prosperous life. Compiler vendors have done a good job of making Ada available to the backyard software mechanic either free or for nominal costs. Anyone who wants to program in Ada can do so and I think these guys deserve a round of applause for that effort. (I'd still like to see compilers targeted to even more embedded processors - but that's my particular niche.) There are certainly a number of people who have produced and made available useful tools, utilities, reusable components and other applications in Ada which are available for the cost of a download. If more of us produced software and put it out there, we'd be adding to that critical mass. Ask yourself what kinds of things you'd like to have available when programming in Ada and start building it & making it available. And when we *do* get to make the language selection for a project, do we pick Ada or do we knuckle in to the C++/Java/Whatever pressure around us? So where you have a choice to do so, why not take your favorite set of reusable components or hacker utilities or whatever things are programmed in Ada and stick them on a web page somewhere? In particular, make it known/available to universities because if the next generation of programmers comes out knowing/appreciating Ada, they'll be generating the demand. -- Marin D. Condic Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600 Ph: 561.796.8997 Fx: 561.796.4669 "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- G.B. Shaw