Re: Marketing Ada

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <3cjbqg$9bf@news-2.csn.net>, Carlos Perez <perez@oldcolo.com> wrote:
>Michael Feldman (mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu) wrote:

[snip]

>I would like to add, does the fact that the language is named after the
>first programmer, a woman, send any particular positive (or negative)
>message to female programmers?  Don't flame me, I'm just curious...

Somewhere in each course, I usually do a "culture" lecture - history 
and status of Ada, a bit on the history of language standards, etc. 
We talk about Ada the person. The female students generally grin at 
finding out who Ada was, and that it's not the Aerican Dental Association. 
Then again, the guys usually grin, too. :-)

I think Ada is much less associated with macho programming than C,
at least among students. I can't speak for industry; I don't know.

Mike Feldman