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From: softeng3456@netscape.net (soft-eng)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc
Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate,
 and why it collapsed and died)
Date: 7 May 2003 10:29:10 -0700
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Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63258 comp.object:62912
 comp.lang.ada:37034 misc.misc:13995
Date: 2003-05-07T17:29:10+00:00
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Preben Randhol <randhol+news@pvv.org> wrote in message news:<slrnbbi4li.9l5.randhol+news@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no>...


> I don't think the reason for the high usage of C is only a merit of the
> language itself, but also to a great extent the inertia.

No doubt, but how do you think C became popular in the
first place, overcoming the inertia (that was then) in favor
of Fortran, Cobol, and Pascal?

C++ actually took this inertia into account, but what
about Java which did not retain backward compability
with C?

Inertia explains the continued usage of languages
well past the time that they have become obsolete.
It even explains how 20 years after its trumpet-and-fanfare
inception, people who got hooked into it are still trying
to explain how wonderful Ada is.  But it does not
explain how new languages come into popularity.