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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,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: 1998/12/08 Message-ID: <366D56C8.B0F0D6F0@pwfl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 420098029 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: condicma@nameserver.pwfl.com References: <366822F5.D80741EE@XXX_nospam_stelnj.com> <366C2564.1C17E3EE@pwfl.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: 1998-12-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Rick Thorne wrote: > > Thank you for this most rational reply. It's clear, well-composed, and > truthful. It does, unfortunately, also tell me the bad news: Ada's hardly > a settled tool in our business. Your reply, Marin, is typical of the more > thoughtful ones: it's more "let's make Ada the technology of choice in > spite of its lean market appeal." A noble gesture, I think, but unlikely. > I appreciate the compliment. Let me say this about the market appeal: Ada has become entrenched rather nicely in certain parts of the market and is not going to go away any time soon. We've built a lot of infrastructure around Ada here at Pratt in the embedded software arena and we're not going to give that up. There are lots of others who build hard realtime & safety critical applications who use Ada - not because of some "mandate" but because it is the best available tool for the job. So while Ada may not be the language in which people are currently building Internet applications, that doesn't mean it is going to disappear. As for career choices, keep in mind that a good software engineer is not good only in one language. I've programmed embedded systems in a whole variety of languages and while I prefer Ada, there are times when Ada is simply not available for the job at hand, so we go with C or assembler or whatever is needed to get the job done. So if you go off and get a job programming in Java that doesn't mean you can't persue an interest in Ada and potentially find ways of utilizing it either on the job or as a sideline interest. I picked my job because I enjoy being involved in embedded realtime systems and military hardware. The fact that this is done largely in Ada is nice too, but if we got word tomorrow that we were now going to program controls in Cobol, that wouldn't mean it was time to quit. MDC -- 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