Re: Is General Kind the harbinger of doom for the Mandate?

[mshapiro@netlink.cts.com (Michael Shapiro)]

jhb@dale.cts.com (John Bollenbacher) writes:

> jnestoriak@vnet.IBM.COM wrote:
> 
> : ... Anyone
> : who graduates from a decent University with a degree in Computer
> : Science who can't learn a new programming language in less than a
> : month must have slept through too many classes.  
> 
> Well, I had been a professional programmer for 7 years (Algol, FORTRAN, C, 
> PL/M...) before immersing myself in Ada and it was probably a year before I 
> felt that I was no longer learning important aspects of the language (a year 
> very well spent I might add).  I consider myself reasonably bright so I have 
> no difficulty acceptying the claim that there is a shortage of well-trained A
> engineers.  Actually, I'm ambivalent about the condition ;).
> 

There's a difference between learning a language enough to use it and 
becoming extremely proficient in it.  An experienced programmer should be 
able to pick up any language similar to the one they've been using fairly 
quickly.  But they'll learn more and more features and techniques with 
use.  One of the cost models I have used (SoftCost, if I recall), assumes 
an Ada programmer is less than fully proficient until they've completed 
three projects.

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