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=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e6d1607a5397de6b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-10-31 13:15:31 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!europa.netcrusader.net!205.252.116.205!howland.erols.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!wesley.videotron.net!news.cae.ca!not-for-mail From: "Jean St-Pierre" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Ada World Embarrassed by the Defense Industry? Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 16:10:35 -0500 Organization: CAE Electronics, Montreal Message-ID: <8tncec$h3q$1@dns3.cae.ca> References: <39FDE9E4.35F615A6@netwood.net> <8tmmat$e79$1@dns3.cae.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: p1574.cae.ca X-Trace: dns3.cae.ca 973026572 17530 142.39.94.8 (31 Oct 2000 21:09:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.cae.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Oct 2000 21:09:32 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:1672 Date: 2000-10-31T21:09:32+00:00 List-Id: Larry Kilgallen wrote in message news:cKo3$rZJqqvZ@eisner.decus.org... > In article <8tmmat$e79$1@dns3.cae.ca>, "Jean St-Pierre" writes: > > This is a typical case of "being right, but being dead". > > > > You're right to say that an Ada programmer is forced to follow better > > programming practices than your typical C programmer. However, I know at > > least two companies that have rewritten the code of their software tools > > from Ada to C++ mostly because they were not able to maintain a stable team > > of Ada programmers at a reasonable cost (to be fair, there were also some > > portability and compiler issues). Those Ada programmers were good, but > > certainly not easy to find. > > So they hired guaranteed long-term C++ programmers who were incapable > of learning Ada ? No, the turnover rate was not lower with the C++ programmers but it did not jeopardize the tool development and maintenance, which was the case with the Ada version. It was simply a logistical and financial decision (availability of programmers, cost of training, cost of maintaining multi-platform port, cost of compilers and cross-compilers, etc). The cost of training was due to the fact that it was very difficult to find Ada-proficient people at the time, so Ada training had to be paid for. I'm not saying it was a technically good decision (I guess we will see in the long term), but it was almost unavoidable, considering the circumstances.