Survey shows: Ada not popular for reengineering

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

    The May 1993 issue of Software Magazine, page 45, has an article on
4GLs.  In the article is a table that has the survey results from a survey
done by Sentry Market Research in which they asked corporate users which
language they would use after reengineering or reverse engineering their
existing systems.  Here are the results:

			Cobol		37%
			4GLs		20%
			C++		16%
			C		15%
			Other		11%
			Ada		 5%
			Smalltalk	 3%
			Basic		 2%
			Fortran		 2%

    Once again, it is clear that the Mandated world has truly botched up
fostering use of Ada in the commercial arena.  Given current market trends
(especially as measured by hiring patterns), I expect C/C++ to increase
their percentages, and Smalltalk to surpass Ada.  It's amazing that nowhere
inside the Mandated world is anyone keeping track of marketing statistics
as they pertain to Ada.

    Especially in the MIS world, much of this could be made favorable to
Ada if IBM endorsed Ada in its commercial product lines.  Unfortunately
for Ada, IBM in recent months has been releasing a fluury of ads for
many new C/C++ and Smalltalk tools in their product lines.  Their message
is quite clear and listened to: Ada has no role in your future.

    Maybe we can start up a collection so that IBM Federal STARS people can
afford to call up IBM Commercial and tell them the same great story about
Ada that they tell the STARS program office.

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
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Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178