From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6570fee5e7c7a796,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-01-09 13:23:07 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!nntpserver.pppl.gov!princeton!udel!gatech!newsfeed.pitt.edu!uunet!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area Message-ID: Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 21:23:07 GMT Date: 1995-01-09T21:23:07+00:00 List-Id: The month of December is a slowing hiring month in the Boston area with the holidays and all. However, things tend to pick up at the new year, and the first Sunday Boston Globe after the New Year's has a special Help Wanted section two to three times larger than usual, with tons of help wanted ads from companies all over the New England area doing substantial hiring. What follows are counts of programming language mentions in these ads for the January 8, 1995 issue. In short, out of hundreds of new jobs reflecting new and ongoing corporate efforts, NO ONE IS HIRING ADA. EMC [computer storage] 18 C/C++, 3 VHDL Cabletron Systems [networking] 20 C/C++ DEC 10 C/C++ 3Com [networking] 17 C/C++, 2 VHDL SHL Systemhouse 1 C/C++, 1 Oracle Raytheon/XYPLEX 12 C/C++ Interchange Online Network 2 C/C++, 1 Visual Basic Corporate Software 3 C/C++, 1 Visual Basic Voicetek 5 C/C++ Interactive Data 2 C/C++, 1 Cobol FTP Software 11 C/C++ Fidelity Investments 15 C/C++, 3 Visual Basic Ektron Applied Imaging 7 C/C++ Martin Marietta 6 C/C++ Delphi Internet 5 C/C++ Analog Devices 2 C/C++ Transparent Language 2 C/C++ Network General 1 C/C++ Natural Microsystems 2 C/C++ Webster Industries [plastics] 1 Cobol STAPLES 3 Oracle, 1 RPG Project Software & Development 2 C/C++, 1 Oracle, 1 Visual Basic Inspex [imaging systems] 1 C/C++ Private Healthcare 1 C/C++, 1 Oracle Advanced Visual Systems 10 C/C++ Investors Bank & Trust 8 Cobol Brigham & Women's Hospital 2 C/C++, 2 SAS MedAccess 3 C/C++, 3 Visual Basic Kronos 4 C/C++, 2 Oracle Progress Software 3 Oracle D&B Software 4 C/C++ Siemens Nixdorf 2 C/C++ New England Funds 1 Visual Basic Arthur D Little 1 C/C++ Eaton 1 C/C++ MARCAM Corporation 2 RPG NESLAB 1 C/C++, 1 RPG Boston Stock Exchange 3 C/C++ IDX [health care] 2 C/C++, 4 Mumps Lightbridge [communications] 9 C/C++ IBM Personal Computer 1 C/C++ Programart Corporation 2 C/C++ Chrysalis [EDA] 4 C/C++, 2 VHDL MKS Instruments 1 C/C++, 2 RPG Cardiac Pacemakers 4 C/C++ Hewlett Packard 6 C/C++ Andover Controls 3 C/C++ Harte-Hanks Data Technologies 2 C/C++ Sun Microsystems 20 C/C++ Sybase 8 C/C++ Childrens's Hospital 2 C/C++, 1 Oracle BBN 7 C/C++ Sapient 4 C/C++ Tufts University 1 SPSS Boston Biostatistics 2 SAS MicroFocus 1 C/C++ Grand Circle Travel 1 RPG Boston Globe 1 C/C++, 1 Cobol ISI Systems [insurance] 4 Cobol Edgewater Technology [client/server] 2 C/C++, 1 Cobol Analog Devices 1 VHDL Thinking Machines 12 C/C++, 2 Fortran Colonial Mutual Funds 1 Cobol ASTEA [software] 3 C/C++, 2 Visual Basic Marshalls 1 Cobol, 1 Oracle, 1 RPG National Medical Care 2 Cobol Addison-Wesley Publishing 1 C/C++ Federal Home Loan Bank 1 Visual Basic Interactive Process Control 2 C/C++ Kurzweil AI 2 C/C++ Software Quality Partners 5 C/C++ Versyss [healthcare] 3 C/C++, 1 Oracle M/A-COM 1 C/C++, 1 VHDL Compuserve 2 C/C++ Loral Advanced Simulation 1 C/C++ Loral Data Systems 4 C/C++ Synetics 2 C/C++, 2 Oracle, 2 Cobol Massachusetts General Hospital 1 SAS Fenwal Safety Systems 1 ROG Thayer Scale 1 C/C++ Boffo Games 3 C/C++ First Data [health care] 2 C/C++ QC Optics 1 Forth Marathon Technologies 3 C/C++ CVS Pharmacy 1 Cobol NOVA Biomedical 2 C/C++ AVNET 1 VHDL Rensselaer Polytechnic 1 C/C++ Let's add it up: 315 C/C++, 23 Cobol, 8 VHDL, 8 RPG BUT NO ADA. These companies are a good cross section of the New England economy, many (formerly) involved with defense work, and yet not one is hiring an Ada programmers (or buying Ada products). Tons of C/C++, a variety of other languages, but no Ada. Examinations of help wanted ads in other cities around the US will reveal similar patterns. LITTLE TO NO ADA. Sure there are non-advertised jobs hiring Ada that won't appear in the papers, but there are orders more non-advertised jobs hiring C/C++. No matter how delusional you are about Ada's successes, these type of national samplings cannot be dismissed. LITTLE TO NO ADA WHERE PEOPLE ARE FREE TO CHOOSE. I don't know who the DoD is paying to design and generate its current survey results, but what I see published differs greatly from what circulates in the Mandated world, for example: The November 14 issue of Informationweek had an article starting on page 91 on programmer retraining, as companies wean employees off of legacy technologies. On page 98 they had a chart of today's hot jobs: C++ applications developers HOTTEST Sybase database developer Solaris systems administrator Windows applications developer Heterogeneous systems administrator Oracle database developer Object-oriented design architect Object-oriented development project manager Smalltalk applications developer C applications developer HOT followed on page 102 on demand for programming language experience: HIGH DEMAND LOW DEMAND C++ Basic C Pascal Smalltalk Ada Visual C++ Cobol Visual Basic Fortran Assembler In light of these trends, all of the cute ideas floating around SIGAda and Tri-Ada and AJPO and the upcoming Ada Summit, not only are ten years too late, but also will produce microeconomically insignficant gains in market share for Ada. There is way too much momentum built up for C/C++, along with the inertia behind Cobol, for cute ideas to help Ada gain much market share, especially when so-called Ada vendors like Rational and Alsys sell tools with the line that with their tools "you can be as productive with C++ as with Ada". And if you don't believe me, read on (from January 1995 Advanced Systems, page 8, Letters to the Editor): Chuck Musciano's "Software Tools" column suggests that I'd better switch to C++ from C real quick. Well, now! I've been involved in development of the most demanding real-time trading systems in New York for three years. Interestingly enough, I manage with the help of plain old C and some great GUI builders like those from TeleUSE [i.e. Alsys] and Sybase. I look good, and most important, I deliver. Won't switch from C to C++ thanks to Alsys' tools. Well, how do you expect to switch them from C to Ada? I think not. As long as Ada vendors make their tools available to non-Ada programmers they will take away many of the reasons people use to justify switching languages. Such dual-language sales strategies maybe good for Rational's and Alsys's bottom line, but lousy for increasing Ada's market share. ========== No venture capitalist looking at such statistics is going to want to invest the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars needed to create a viable Ada industry with significant market share. It is obvious that the current Ada vendors don't have the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars needed, and even if they did, they have shown little interest in promoting and advertising Ada. I can't remember the last time I saw an advertisment for an Ada compiler in any of the software engineering journals, especially an ad that had prices, an ad similar in quality and frequency to Intermetrics' C compiler ads. I mean how pathetic is the Ada industry? The February 1995 has a great article on Ada for Windows, and yet no one Ada compiler vendor has an ad in the magazine for interested readers to know how to contact the vendors. A fantastic opportunity blown by the Ada vendors. Forget about the third party Ada components vendors for investing in Ada. Thanks to still untreated DoD procurement regulations and miserly defense contractors they don't exist to help promote and market Ada. So all that leaves for investing the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars that Ada needs is the DoD. The DoD caused all of these problems with their mismanagement of Ada programs and policies for the last ten years, squandering the hundreds of millions of dollars that Ada now needs to be anything more than a non-niche language, contracting out Ada projects to hypocrites and people with no experience in trying to do "commercial" things with Ada. And if the DoD isn't going to invest to this level in Ada using people who have a clue, then get rid of the Ada Mandate because this country's national security should not be held hostage to gougers exploiting a language that this country and the majority of the DoD has ignored for most everything else, including many projects as large scale, real time demanding, and mission critical as anything being done with Ada. Greg Aharonian