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,bd458ec8f01c159a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-25 05:05:46 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3FC3539A.2040103@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: New Language Design: (Cray, Sun prep radical software models for petaflops systems) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:05:46 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.1.232 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1069765546 209.165.1.232 (Tue, 25 Nov 2003 05:05:46 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 05:05:46 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2920 Date: 2003-11-25T13:05:46+00:00 List-Id: Depending on what one wants to use as a measure of "Success" - one might judge Ada to be a failure. Ada was supposed to be designed for embedded software development and was supposed to be used for mission critical DoD applications. By the first goal, Ada is a miserable failure when "other" ranks higher than "Ada" in just about every survey of embedded developers when asked "What language do you use?" As for the "Mission Critical DoD" apps? The developers had to be drug into Ada kicking and screaming and as soon as The Mandate was lifted they began to abandon it in droves. So by those measures, Ada is a failure. OTOH, Ada has evolved into a very powerful OO programming language, has several good quality compilers out there and is getting used in a number of domains that it wasn't originally targeted for. It has a small, but dedicated following and it is finding new developers every day. It is successful in the sense that it has users and tools and has the *potential* to gain more widespread use. I think it needs to do more to secure a larger audience or that small, yet dedicated, following is likely to dwindle. Life expectancy for a language depends to a large extent on a nebulous thing called "Industry Support" - Ada has just enough to keep it alive - for now - but long term, it needs to get more if it wants to stay alive. MDC Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > I find it interesting that they classified "Ada" > as a failure, and are looking at ways to extend > "Fortran" (of all things) and C++. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Trying is the first step towards failure." -- Homer Simpson ======================================================================