Re: Is Ada likely to survive ?

[dcw@coral.emspnc.att.com (dcw)]

In article <dewar.870176161@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
><<> > How many languages *haven't* survived?
>> FWIW, plenty: ALGOL 58, COMIT, COMTRAN, FACT, IPL-V, NELLIAC, SIMULA,
>> TRAC and many more. I don't expect Ada to die in 10 years, but there
>> is ample precedent.

{...stuff deleted...}

>There are literally thousands of miscellaneous languages that have been
>used a bit, so it is agood thing that many have died off. Let's raise
>the bar a bit and ask for examples of languages that have not survived
>that had at least a national standard, and which were used on a wide
>variety of large projects.
>
>My count of the cardinality of this set is zero.
>

I was fully agreeing with Robert up until the phrase, "...used on a 
wide variety of large projects".  I think that requirement is too
restrictive.  It tilts the balance too far in Ada's favor.  So,
I would stop at languages that had a national standard <or> were
widely used by a broad community.

Using my criteria, I offer the following examples,

UCSD Pascal, Rocky Mountain Basic, PL/M, Forth, RAMISII, DBASIC

Some would assert that UCSD Pascal and Rocky Mountain Basic are 
dialects, not languages.  While I would partially concede the 
point, (they were extensions of a codified standard) there were 
fundamental semantic differences which stretch the definition 
of "dialect".
-- 
David C. (Dave) Willett
Lucent Technologies Greensboro N.C.
(910) 279-7091
dcw@pearl.lucent.com