Re: A question for my personal knowledge.

[Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com>]

Roger Racine wrote:
> We recently had a former employee come back for a job interview.  He
> specifically said that he would not come back to an Ada job.  There are many
> who think it is a blot on their resume to have their current job something
> that is "not marketable", like Ada.  These are (otherwise) very intelligent
> people.
> 
Having been on either side of the job interview, I cannot possibly
imagine how someone looking for a hard working, intelligent, self
starting, go-getter to work on their project would view experience with
some specific computer language as a *negative*. I could imagine someone
saying "interesting, but we don't do that here", but it is difficult to
imagine someone saying "Oh, you worked with language X so it must have
dammaged your brain and made you worthless to do 'real' work!"

I spent two years working with Jovial code. (I refer to this as my
"Exile in New Jersey" :-) Jovial was not something most people are
looking for, but I don't think it was a detriment when I was out looking
for another job. Obviously, I knew how to use a number of other
languages and my real skill was in getting a job done - not being an
expert in the Language Du Jour.

BTW: I've had any number of people contact me saying "I'm currently
working in C++ (or whatever) but I'd really like to go back to
programming in Ada" and ask if I can get them a job. I'm not in a
position to be handing out jobs to everyone I get an e-mail from, but
the point is, there are plenty of programmers who are experienced with a
variety of languages who would *prefer* to be doing Ada. My advice would
be to start encouraging its use in the shop where you are at. If you
can't use it for the direct project, you can probably use it for support
tools or other sideline kinds of things where nobody much cares what you
use. It's a little like the camel getting its nose under the tent -
pretty soon there is a lot more development going on in Ada.

MDC
-- 
Marin David 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
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