Re: "is ada dead?" A challenge for all of us?

[James Squire <james.a.squire@boeing.com>]

Michael Erdmann wrote:
> 
> Such question is always creating the wish in me
> to prove that it is not true, but my experiences
> with open source projects for Linux makes it
> more and more diffcult to prove this.
> 
> If you look as the open source market which is
> mainly driven by the commonly available operating
> system (e.g Linux) you will find that C, C++ and a lot
> of other lagnuages are mutch more dominant then Ada.
> Typical for this situation is e.g. the fact that most
> of the Linux distributions claim to support Ada, but
> the compiler is in fact  NOT part of the distribution.
> Or how many applications of a typlical Linux
> distribution are written in Ada? I think the answer
> is about 0!

The question "is Ada dead?" is feeling more and more to me like the
wrong question.  "Ada" is not a sentient being itself, it is a tool - a
means to an end.

The better question is: "are WE dead (if the Ada language falls in to
disuse)?"

And by dead, I don't literally mean the end of life as we know it or
anything so melodramatic.  I mean as in failure of crucial projects,
both from a company's point of view and from a national point of view
(for defense-related projects), as well as loss of jobs and livelyhood.

The question "is ada dead?" ends up being answered in populist modes
rather than strict scientific modes, and for me the answer only matters
inasmuch as it relates to what I think is the real question.

Just my $0.02 ...
-- 
James Squire             Send my Spam to mailto:webmaster@cyberpromo.com
MDA^H^H^HBoeing St. Louis                          http://www.boeing.com
Opinions expressed here are my own and NOT my company's
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't believe anybody."
'What a wonderful world you live in.'
"Yeah, well.  The rent is cheap, the pay is decent, and I got to make
    my own hours."
	-- Garibaldi and Dr. Franklin, "Hunter, Prey"