How widespread is Ada now?

[sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler)]

I just completed a conversation with someone who made
some statements that surprised me a little.  Not knowing
much about this area, I'm appealing to you folks for
some verification.  (I'd rather not hear too many opinions
on this stuff - I have enough of my own.)

1. The DoD is now turning down bids by companies solely
   because they are not specifying Ada as the programming
   language.  (The particular example used was one
   involving a bid by a division of Honeywell.)

2. NASA, DoD, NBS (National Bureau of Standards) are all
   requiring Ada now (along with several other government
   agencies that I didn't take note of).

3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage.
   (I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.)

4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science
   program are pretty much assured of obtaining several
   million dollars of grant support to do so, and that
   this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program
   that has done so.

Well, what is the degree of truth in these statement?
I'm surprised by 3 because I haven't seen all that many
job ads requesting Ada, both on the Net and in magazines
such as Computer World.

There were other, similar, comments made, but I think the
above is enough for you to get the drift.

Please email me if possible, just to keep the flame wars
down some.
-- 
	Steve Wampler
	{....!arizona!naucse!sbw}