I am taking an introductory computer science class at the UW and 
we are learning the Ada language. So far it's pretty nice. The language 
seems to lend itself to easy readability, the fact that the language is 
case insensitive is also a nice factor and the language is incredibly 
powerful. We're in the second quarter of this class and we're already 
writing ADT's and generic functions. Ada seems to be pretty neat, strong 
typing, bounds checking and generic functions are all nice language 
features, and from what I've seen Ada is a lot better than C. So why is 
it that the real world, such�as it is, programs in C. Sure, C compilers 
are cheaper, but it seems to me that the labor that you put into writing 
and maintaining the programs is the real cost, and I know that, at least 
for me, writing something in C takes a lot longer than writing something 
in Ada. So why hasn't Ada caught on? Why aren't people developing 
applications for it?


Jamie Jamison
niteowl@u.washington.edu