Re: Ada lives?

[Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com>]

Chris wrote:
> 
> Can anyone point me to any recent analyses (or facts even ;-) that indicate
> the current trends in the usage of Ada.  The sort of information I'm after
> is...
> 
> - Is the use of Ada increasing or decreasing?

It seems to be growing slowly but steadily, with a shift occurring toward
commercial use.

> - How much Ada is used on new projects?

It depends on the market.  In safety-critical systems, Ada is
a major player.  In desktop applications, Ada is a negligent
player.  

In real-time embedded systems, Ada is probably the
number 3 or 4, above languages like Modula, Eiffel, Pascal, but
below C/C++.  It is not clear where Java is in this market yet.

> - Where is the Ada Tools market - total size, increasing or decreasing?

Slowly but steadily increasing, somewhere in the range of $100-$200 million
(it is hard to be more specific because most of the companies are privately
held, or don't break out their Ada tools business separately).

> - How much is Ada 83 still being used vs Ada 95?

There are a number of large legacy projects that cannot justify
upgrading to Ada 95, except as part of a major system upgrade.
The large majority of new Ada projects use Ada 95 compilers.
It is of course hard to know which Ada 95 features they use.  One
can certainly continue to program in mostly-Ada-83 using an Ada 95
compiler, which makes sense in some environments.

> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> Chris Chedgey.
> Headway Software Ltd.
> email:  chrisc at headway-software dot com

-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions  (www.averstar.com/tools)
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)   Burlington, MA  USA