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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,63ceef1cf4561e32 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Scott Ingram` Subject: Re: Customer balks at Ada -- any hope? Date: 2000/07/18 Message-ID: <3974D54B.3D2449FD@silver.jhuapl.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 647964633 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <8l01s4$gnr$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39748F35.72CBC45A@averstar.com> <8l26kj$3eh$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: usenet@houston.jhuapl.edu X-Trace: houston.jhuapl.edu 963958176 5477 128.244.10.34 (18 Jul 2000 22:09:36 GMT) Organization: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Jul 2000 22:09:36 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-07-18T22:09:36+00:00 List-Id: mjsilva@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <39748F35.72CBC45A@averstar.com>, > Tucker Taft wrote: > > > > Another important point is that good programmers can learn new > >languages > > quickly, and Ada compilers provide excellent "training wheels" because > > of their abundant compile-time error checking. > > I definitely want to select some clear Ada source code to back this > point. I also suspect that when one selects only embedded-savvy > programmers the balance isn't nearly so lopsided for C++. It's pretty > obvious to me that it's easier to teach an embedded-savvy programmer > Ada (especially "maintainence" Ada) than to teach a "generic" C++ > programmer embedded smarts. > > Mike Hmmm....I have no formal training in programming. (Come to think of it, I have very little formal training in anything!) But I must point out from my perspective as an electronic technician that maintaining an embedded system in Ada (which is one of my jobs) is much easier than maintaining a system of equal complexity in C (also one of my jobs.) Once your management types twig to the fact that they don't need the equivalent of Leonardo da'Vinci to maintain code, they may be more convincing to your customer. An added benefit in my case is that my Ada experience made it simple for me to learn to write test benches in VHDL, again freeing resources that get paid more than I do for the equivalent work.