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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.66.219.135 with SMTP id po7mr53485069pac.9.1416005674828; Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:54:34 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.182.52.198 with SMTP id v6mr153966obo.13.1416005674685; Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:54:34 -0800 (PST) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!h15no397847igd.0!news-out.google.com!ks2ni20433igb.0!nntp.google.com!r10no2871643igi.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:54:34 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=23.120.9.43; posting-account=XrU4OgoAAADEPkoULFhRQzFYU74OGc9X NNTP-Posting-Host: 23.120.9.43 References: User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <3d5997a0-fc19-4265-9ca4-89b004974829@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: F-22 ADA Programming From: rriehle@itu.edu Injection-Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 22:54:34 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:23339 Date: 2014-11-14T14:54:34-08:00 List-Id: On Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:55:40 PM UTC-7, David Botton wrote: > > "Lack of Ada developers" is also a false complaint.=20 >=20 > There are overall very few developers when you are looking for "local" de= velopers. I am not sure there is another Ada developer in all of South Flor= ida I could hire if I needed :) >=20 > > Generally they want to hire lots of poor developers, since that maximiz= es profit on cost-plus contracts, and Ada people tend not to fall into tha= t category. >=20 > There is truth to this, but once they hired the handful of people we know= they'd still have tons of seats to fill. >=20 > Also, not every project requires someone with the skill sets many of us h= ave, projects of a large enough size may not justify that many senior level= people. >=20 > David Botton I recall from when I was actively teaching Ada that one large DoD contracto= r (one of the largest) decided to use C++ instead of Ada. The reason? We= can hire C++ programmers right out of college. This is rather strange. W= hy would they think that recent college graduates schooled in a clunky lan= guage such as C++, where they wrote mostly toy programs using features that= we cannot allow (notice the long list of proscriptions for JSF), who need = to be retaught how to use the language safely -- how can they think they ar= e getting any benefit? I used to ask they, "Why would you choose a progra= mming language that is inherently error-prone and expect an outcome that is= error-free?" Answer: "Go away Richard. We have made our decision." =20 Ada is not that hard to learn. Probably the most difficult thing to learn= in Ada is the rules from Chapter Eight, Visibility Rules. Those rules are= what make Ada unique, and make it a powerful engineering-oriented tool for= building dependable software. Too often, I found, they just wanted to get= code working as quickly as possible without too much thought to the depend= ability issues. "We can find the problems during testing," is not a good a= pproach to engineering. Too often, when problems are discovered during tes= ting, the design flaws need to be fixed with the equivalent of some kind of= shim -- what I call a "software shim," reminiscent of putting a piece of f= olded napkin under a wobbly table, instead of creating a precise design fro= m the beginning. =20 Until we have software professionals who are also trained to think as-if th= ey were engineers, they will not really appreciate Ada as we would hope the= y would.