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: 103376,38159b1b5557a2e7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-01-23 05:25:24 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <401120BF.2000903@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: why ada is so unpopular ? References: <400FCC19.6080607@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:25:23 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.26.148 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net 1074864323 209.165.26.148 (Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:25:23 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:25:23 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4706 Date: 2004-01-23T13:25:23+00:00 List-Id: Been there. Done that. Got the T-Shirt. You're right that in lots of domains, it takes you more time to learn the domain than to learn the language. Managers love to hire guys who already have experience in the domain for exactly that reason. But that doesn't really address the issue that a manager has when choosing a language. Training people is *part* of the cost, but by no means all of it. If you're building things using sensors and actuators and control algorithms like I am, then you're probably talking about very long-lived systems that are extremely expensive to verify. Especially in some environment like that, a manager doesn't want to be sitting on top of a dead-end language. If it becomes mostly non-existant in ten years and his control has to live for another 30 years, he is most eggregiously sexually penetrated when he has to switch to something else in mid-project. I'll reiterate: Give the poor manager something he can have some confidence in and believe it will solve his problems and maybe he'll start making the decisions you want him to make. He lives or dies by things like cost, schedule, time-to-market, risk reduction, etc. Selecting some niche language with an uncertain future, a lack of industry support, a poverty of tools/libraries (compared to other choices) and a profound disinterest on the part of most of the available programmers out there just doesn't look like a career-enhancing move. Fix that and maybe he'll show more interest in the language. MDC Stephen Leake wrote: > > In my field, the time it takes to learn Ada is quite small compared to > the time it takes to learn how to write useful programs. The later > involves data structures, real-time scheduling, the physics of > actuators and sensors, and control algorithms. None of those things > are "main stream" :). > > And yet the managers still say "we can't teach people new programming > languages". > -- ====================================================================== 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 "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat. Its the FAT that makes you look fat." -- Al Bundy ======================================================================