Re: Ada and QNX

[Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com>]

ahummmm wrote:

> In article <V_hB5.59429$dZ2.20181071@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>,
>   "James Boucher" <jaboucher@home.com> wrote:
> > I know this is a bit of flamebait, but as an ADA programmer
> > from the old school...   I love ADA, but it is DEAD. DEAD.
> > DEAD.

From time to time I hear somone say that COBOL is dead.  Yet I spent three
hours today preparing a briefing on COBOL for someone who will present
it to a large corporation's programming staff beginning Monday of this
week.

If a programming language dies in the middle of a forest, will anyone
hear it?   If someone says a programming language is dead often
enough, will it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Does the word
"dead" when used to describe the state of a programming language,
preclude the later use of the word, "resurrected" or perhaps, for
those of you with a more mystical bent,  "reincarnated?"   Whatever
you may think, an idea does not disappear so easily from the world
and as long as there are advocates of that idea, it can find its way
back into popularity.

I wonder if the authormeans Ada is obsolete.   If so, his amorous
proclamation may be like that of a long-married spouse slipping over
the brink of a forties crisis.    Those who know Ada realize that it
is far from obsolete.  Those who do not make such pronouncements
out of ignorance.

Some of the alternatives to Ada are more popular.  Some misguided
managers have mistaken popularity for quality and several DoD
contractors have made the error of forsaking Ada in favor of inferior
technologies such as C++.  Does this mean Ada is dead in those
organizations?   Not really.

As people  seek to abandon Ada in favor of the glitzy languages so
popular in Dr. Dobbs discover how dreadful those languages are, they
reconsider the benefits of Ada.   C++, for example, turns out to be just
another pretty face. Even as early as the wedding night, scrubbed of its
makeup, shed of its adornments, the C++ honeymoon can quite suddenly
be over.  Sadly, we continue to see some make decisions for form over
substance.

But "Ada is DEAD?"  Hardly.  It appears that a prodigality of resources
dedicated to opposing technologies was important so those deluded souls
could understand the importance of what they had in the first place.
Now they need to get over buyer's remorse and get back to the solid
capabilities available in Ada.

So, you might want to rethink you use of the adjective, "DEAD."   Then
again,
one could consider the admonition of the poet, John Donne, in "Death Be Not

Proud."

Richard Riehle