Re: Ada The Best Language?

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

If you look at who the "Major" players are in computer languages, you tend
to see a lot of C/C++ & Java for most problem domains. (We could start a
whole debate about how to determine the most "popular" computer languages
are - its been done here before. Job postings are some indication, but are
debatable as an accurate indicator...) Since we Ada-philes want to see our
pet language become one of the "Majors" so we can spend time working in the
language we enjoy the most, we tend to target things like C++ and Java.
(Maybe Ada is a Java wannabe? Or more like C#? :-) C++ apps tend to be the
kinds of things that Ada would excel at and C++ is probably the easiest to
criticize, so it gets viewed as the major competitor and cited most often as
being "The Other Guys".

I think Ada is well positioned to take over the C++ slot if a few things
come together. People are beginning to be disilusioned with C++ and see many
of the weaknesses it has. They're searching for an alternative (Java, C#?)
but not necessarily settling on anything yet. (Java had a quick blossom
because of the incredible marketing effort by Sun, but it too is begining to
show weaknesses in some areas, so people are still shopping.) Ada solves a
lot of the problems that C++ has while fitting nicely into the kinds of apps
that C++ is used for. If the right pieces come together for Ada and the
right attention is grabbed, it could become a major player too. It would
certainly help to get Ada adopted in a couple of major, high-visibility
projects!

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"David Bolen" <db3l@fitlinxx.com> wrote in message
news:usnfjus2m.fsf@ctwd0143.fitlinxx.com...
>
> It's interesting that I've seen just about all responses wondering
> about equivalent sites for C++ when I didn't even mention any specific
> language in my initial post.  I guess it's clear who's in Ada's
> sights, eh?  :-)
>