Ada last place in programming language census

Ada last place in programming language census

[Gregory Aharonian]

 
    As part of the research for my recent proposal that the Ada community
jointly sponsor a series of ads in Computerworld publicizing Ada (for which
I have gotten very few replies), the people at Computerworld sent to me
a copy of the readership profile, which includes a survey of programming
language use.  Once a year they survey their readers, and among other things,
find out which languages they are involved with.  This involvement could
include actual use of the language, managing of people using the language,
purchase and analysis of language products, etc.
 
    Here are the results for the August 1992 survey:
 
                         Cobol          405,325
                         Basic          332,786
                         Assembler      309,163
                         Fortran        266,912
                         RPG II         163,443
                         Pascal         162,391
                         C              160,295
                         SQL            154,814
                         SAS            147,365
                         PL/1           114,340
                         C++             71,448
                         RPG II          69,529
                         APL             18,185
                         Ada             10,459
 
    What can we conclude?  First, that the Computerworld community is a
great source of people who we can pitch the benefits of Ada to, people
using more "primitive" languages, people for the most part not having
bought Ada products (as opposed to Tri-Ada).
 
    Second, it would be very worthwhile for someone who is being funded
to actually care about Ada to contact Computerworld and find out what
these figures have been for the last ten years, to determine trends.
My guess is that the C/C++ share has been growing steadily, while some
of the older languages like RPG, PL/1, Pascal and Assembler have been
decreasing.  Also the C/C++ share is about twenty times larger than the
Ada share, which discounting by a factor of two due to Mandated use,
corroborates my guess that Ada use is forty to fifty times less than C/C++
outside the Mandated world.
 
    Third, for anyone who knows anything about microeconomics and the
concept of the "multiplier-effect" of government and corporate expenditures,
will realize that Ada's 10,459 share in this community is stark evidence of
the total apathy of those inside the Mandated World (spending billions on
Ada projects and research) towards fostering the use of Ada outside the
Mandated world.  (This data also buttresses the arguments made in SEI's long
suppressed report on national software infrastructure and national security,
[suppression on whose orders I have never been able to find out]).
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Ada last place in programming language census

[agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!c]

In article <CB8su9.JpI@world.std.com>,
Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com> wrote:
> 
>                         Cobol          405,325
>                         Basic          332,786
>                         Assembler      309,163
>                         Fortran        266,912
>                         RPG II         163,443
>                         Pascal         162,391
>                         C              160,295
>                         SQL            154,814
>                         SAS            147,365
>                         PL/1           114,340
>                         C++             71,448
>                         RPG II          69,529
>                         APL             18,185
>                         Ada             10,459

Boy, the database folks must find this discouraging: only SQL made
the list (no clipper, dbase, etc.). No Simscript, Algol, Modula 2, LISP, 
or Prolog, either.

Gee, Ada is actually doing rather well!  14th place isn't bad - given
the languages that didn't even make the list.  

Re: Ada last place in programming language census

[cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!usc!elro]

srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:

> 
>    As part of the research for my recent proposal that the Ada community
>
....... stuff deleted
 
>    Here are the results for the August 1992 survey:
> 
>                         Cobol          405,325
>                         Basic          332,786
>                         Assembler      309,163
>                         Fortran        266,912
>                         RPG II         163,443
>                         Pascal         162,391
>                         C              160,295
>                         SQL            154,814
>                         SAS            147,365
>                         PL/1           114,340
>                         C++             71,448
>                         RPG II          69,529
>                         APL             18,185
>                         Ada             10,459
> 
>    What can we conclude?  

	That C++ is 6.8312 times more used than Ada
	That Cobol is 5.673 times more used that c++
	That Cobol is therefor 6.8312*5.673 times more used than Ada
	(btw that = 38.753445 times more)

	I suppose that may be expected though as Cobol was used by
	Noah on the Ark's Ticket booking system. And C++/C is taught
	in universities

Re: Ada last place in programming language census

[cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.]

>  
>     Here are the results for the August 1992 survey:
>  
>                          Cobol          405,325
>                          Basic          332,786
>                          Assembler      309,163
>                          Fortran        266,912
>                          RPG II         163,443
>                          Pascal         162,391
>                          C              160,295
>                          SQL            154,814
>                          SAS            147,365
>                          PL/1           114,340
>                          C++             71,448
>                          RPG II          69,529
>                          APL             18,185
>                          Ada             10,459
>  
>     What can we conclude?

 Most of all, we can conclude that old habits are hard to break.  The top
 four langauges have all been around since I was probably a kid.  The people
 who have been taught those langauges will want to continue to use them
 because they are proficient in them.  Ada, C, and C++  haven't been as long
 ( well maybe C - circa 1972) and the software culture hasn't accepted them as
 readily yet.

  Ada, C and C++ are all good languages.  In some cases, C might be better
  than Ada,  in other other cases,  I would certainly prefer Ada.  We have
  a 100k+ flight management system that could be done in C, but would
  probably take us more time to integrate and debug.  The interfaces in a
  large system is what has always given us the most problems, and Ada
  pounded those out in a hurry, so it has helped us a great deal there.

  Ada isn't the langauge for every program since each program has different
  needs.  I have found it to be quite good for most embedded applications,
  although I would like something other than unchecked_conversion for
  twiddling the bits (C is good for that!).

  I think this is why think you couldn't  reasonably get 100%
  compliance from the mandate.  Eveything in Ada is like saying everyone in
  the Gov't has to drive a Ford - even if a Ford isn't the best vehicle for
  the job.   I am developing a Software Design Document generator for our
  program and I am doing it in Turbo Pascal.  Why? Because I don't have an Ada
  compiler for my PC at home (or at work), and the TP compilers have long
  been cheap and reliable, plus I already have code that I can reuse to
  generate this document.  So, in this case - Turbo Pascal was the best
  choice for me.  I have Turbo C, but my library of routines is not as
  developed as my Pascal library, and I am not as proficient in C as Pascal.
  I also have a deadline - which makes it harder for me to want to fight
  with the C compiler - which is much slower on my machine, than the TP
  compiler.  All these things made it cost effective to do it in TP - which
  was close at hand and portable (but not Ada).

  Enough ranting - hopefully our Gov't can see that even though Ada is a
  good langauge,  mandating it in every application is not a good idea.
  It is a good idea to encourage reuse through the use of a single
  language, and to standardize software development, but to force every
  program to use only Ada (we have assembly in our Ada runtime) is to be
  ignorant of all other software technology.

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Todd A Sorensen               Honeywell Defense Avionics Systems Division
505-828-5611                  internet: tsorense@dasd.honeywell.com
                              internet: tas@dasd.honeywell.com
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