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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e6d1607a5397de6b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-10-30 14:01:49 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!portc03.blue.aol.com!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.19!wnmasters2!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <39FDF025.FDDE904F@worldnet.att.net> From: James Rogers X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Ada World Embarrassed by the Defense Industry? References: <39FDE9E4.35F615A6@netwood.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 22:01:47 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.74.131.170 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 972943307 12.74.131.170 (Mon, 30 Oct 2000 22:01:47 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 22:01:47 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:1644 Date: 2000-10-30T22:01:47+00:00 List-Id: "E. Robert Tisdale" wrote: > > > It is possible to implement reliable applications > in other programming languages through diligence, > discipline and exhaustive testing. It just costs more. > One can only assume that the commercial developer > weighed these costs against all of the other costs > relevant to application program development when > they decided which programming language(s) to use. Nice sentiment, but my experience tells me this is nonesense. I am currently involved in teaching software skills to software professionals. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any customers wanting to learn Ada. I have found a number of customers wanting to learn Java. The most curious group of these customers are the ones wanting to convert all their legacy COBOL code to Java. Such decisions are not being made by the people who understand the legacy code. They are being made by management who want to feel like they are keeping up with the times. All their friends in other companies are using Java. That is all the reason they need. After that, they hire some Java consultants, who naturally say that Java is the only language worth using for ANY purpose. With such a glowing recommendation, the management team feels fully justified in their decision to switch to Java. After making the decision they sometimes ask what performance gains they will see. The answer is always that they will see significant performance losses using Java. Ah well, I guess that is the price of keeping up with your peers. > > The problem for the military > is to test and evaluate all of these applications > and select the best value. > > If application program source codes are transferred > to the military, they must find and/or train programmers > to modify and maintain that source code. > It is easier to find and train C and C++ programmers > than it is to find and train Ada programmers today > so there is a strong incentive to prefer C or C++ over Ada. This is also nonesense. It is easier to find C and C++ programmers than Ada programmers. It is definitely NOT easier to train C and C++ programmers than Ada programmers. Among other things, you must train C and C++ programmers to avoid the numerous dangerous features of the language, particularly when developing real-time system. You can spend less time teaching Ada, without multiple class hours spent on avoiding dangerous language features. If you want to spend the same amount of time teaching Ada, you can teach the real-time aspects of synchronous and asynchronous tasking. These subjects are NEVER taught in C and C++ courses. They are occasionally taught as SEPARATE COURSES for those C and C++ developers who want to explore the strange domain of concurrent systems. > > A lot can be done to incorporate safety and reliability > into C and C++ compilers and class libraries > but these languages are inherently unsafe > and there is very little that can be done about it > without changing the languages themselves. Exactly. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado