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-Thread: 103376,1f00e12fa1e87526 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news2.google.com!proxad.net!infeed-1.proxad.net!news13-e.free.fr!not-for-mail Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 00:15:28 +0200 From: gregg Organization: remove NOSPAMand WANTED to reach me User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-gb, en, en-us, fr-fr, fr, de, es MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Dr Dobbs dismisses Ada References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <42891b5f$0$31069$626a14ce@news.free.fr> NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 May 2005 00:14:55 MEST NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.225.219.133 X-Trace: 1116281695 news13-e.free.fr 31069 82.225.219.133:1513 X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11050 Date: 2005-05-17T00:14:55+02:00 List-Id: Stephen Leake wrote: > In the May 2005 issue of Dr Dobbs magazine, the "embedded space" > column by Ed Nisley has a brutal dismissal of Ada: > > the entire cadre of Ada programmers is reaching retirement age > with no replacements on tap. He dismisses C/C++ as well. Only to promote Java. (it's a constant trend in Dr Dobb's lately, which I regret). Argh, I think I'd be troubled to know that the plane I'm taking is running Java in some way -- considering the amount of Java code I've had to do. Then again, Java is over-publicised. Not only for web applications, but also for such critical and passion-heaving missions as space probes for NASA. I gather Ada (and especially 2006) really does need publicity too. It is no time to keep being the one discreet, invisible thing making the whole architecture stable and performant, in the background. And let's wipe out that Ariane V failure, too. Java gains terrain through hype. When I was doing my BS, my teacher in Object Oriented Programming had a moment of doubt because of Sun's erratic position (as this was before the Microsoft dollar-settlement), and said "God, what will we be using then ? We don't know." I wish I had known Ada enough, back then, just to propose it. Now it seems Java is on his way up again (even though Free Software proponents are worried with Sun, a free implementation of Java does not pose any problem to them). And this include embedded thingies. Shouldn't Ada developers be more prone to publicity ? A sort of proselytism maybe (which I certainly dislike, but might be necessary). An "ada-powered" sticker on projects ? :-) Trying to gain such territories as PDAs, cellular phones, and everyday-devices, while claiming it ? (my 2 cents of course, I'm hardly a beginner and certainly not a decision-maker, not enough power to promote the language in the institution I work for...) But what about universities ? There is not much display and promotion for Ada there, either ? (Not to mention the very few projects in Ada on sourceforge and freshmeat, for instance). > It would help if other Dr Dobbs subscribers wrote in as well. > Where did you write to ? (Shall we need a petition or something ?) ++