Re: Anybody in US using ADA ? One silly idea..

["John R. Strohm" <strohm@airmail.net>]

"Kevin Cline" <kcline17@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ba162549.0301030124.237c7a7e@posting.google.com...
> Bill Findlay <yaldnifw@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<BA3A535D.177F%yaldnifw@blueyonder.co.uk>...
> > On 2/1/03 17:57, in article 3E147D79.2070703@cogeco.ca, "Warren W. Gay
> > VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote:
> > >
> > > Maybe what needs to be done is to form a brand new committee, to
design
> > > a spashy new language that basically implements the same features,
with
> > > similar syntax (but not too obviously). Then give it a splashy new
name
> > > after a popular young female (no programmer experience required), and
> > > call it something like "Shania".
> >
> > In a language controversy on comp.arch a few weeks ago, some of us came
to
> > the conclusion that a lot of the irrational antipathy to Ada was based
on
> > unregenerate machismo.
>
> Not all the antipathy to Ada is irrational.  Most of it comes
> from sad experience.  Mine was trying to use Ada-83 to write Unix
> applications with a Motif UI.  Regardless of any superiority in
> reliability, the scarcity of libraries and trained
> programmers makes Ada too expensive for most commercial software
> projects.

In the very early 1980s, General Dynamics / Fort Worth Division started the
F-16C/D program.  This was a MAJOR upgrade of the airplane, involving, among
other things, all new computers and all new software.

Ada wasn't there yet, so they chose JOVIAL J73.

At that time, there existed precisely one J73 compiler, and it didn't target
EITHER of the processors they were designing into the airplane (Zilog Z8002
and MIL-STD-1750A).  They wound up having to let compiler development
contracts to two (small) companies to develop toolsets.

At that time, trained J73 programmers just plain didn't exist.  GD/FW had to
train every single programmer they hired for that project.

Every time I hear someone grumbling about the scarcity of trained Ada
programmers, I think about F-16C/D and JOVIAL, and I wonder how GD/FW ever
managed to get that airplane off the ground, if training is so hard.

I'm not even going to mention HAL/S, the Space Shuttle language, which to my
(unclassified) knowledge was not used for anything else on the planet.
Where does NASA (and the SEI Level 5 contractor) get trained HAL/S
programmers?