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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,f49c8f164340c377 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news2.google.com!news.glorb.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <7744bf.vg4.ln@hunter.axlog.fr> <1188580722.187449.288030@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Current status of Ada? X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3138 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.134.96.57 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com 1188759848 ST000 70.134.96.57 (Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:04:08 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:04:08 EDT Organization: AT&T http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: FKPGW^WETZSMB_DX]BCBNWX@RJ_XPDLMN@GZ_GYO^BSZUSAANVUEAE[YETZPIWWI[FCIZA^NBFXZ_D[BFNTCNVPDTNTKHWXKB@X^B_OCJLPZ@ET_O[G\XSG@E\G[ZKVLBL^CJINM@I_KVIOR\T_M_AW_M[_BWU_HFA_]@A_A^SGFAUDE_DFTMQPFWVW[QPJN Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 12:04:57 -0700 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:1658 Date: 2007-09-02T12:04:57-07:00 List-Id: "Gary Scott" wrote in message news:yWgCi.852$4J3.839@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net... > > But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers themselves. > When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C programmers were > turning down job offers. Not because they couldn't pick up Ada, but because > they wanted to keep their C skills polished in case they found a better > position elsewhere. You do get rusty from non-use, and you fall behind the > latest standards over time. > I have heard this argument from the so-called managers who were using it as an excuse for not using Ada. When the interviewing manager says something such as, "Of course, in our shop you will be programming in Ada instead of C. I know this is a little bit out of the mainstream, but the government programming we do requires us to use Ada." Or some similar line of apologetic interviewing, what can we expect. Yes. Too often, the managers would apologize for using Ada instead of focusing on the benefits of using it. And there are a lot of benefits. Adam mentioned the software engineering benefits, and those benefits are substantial. When I was just a programmer, even a programming manager, before discovering Ada, I did not really understand software engineering very well. Most of what passed for (and still passes for) software engineering was the adoption of Industrial Engineering protocols on the software process. There was very little of what any real engineer would call engineering. I have Ada to thank for helping me rise above the programming model that I had been stuck with for so many years. Hardly anyone engineers software in C. Very few really use C++ to engineer software solutions. As long as we remain tied to the notion that programmers are the driving force in the software process, we are doomed to a long nightmare of horrible applications where debugging is the norm and design is the exception. If C++ is the answer, someone is asking the wrong question. Where C is often called a "universal assembler," C++ is an object-oriented assembler, and not as universal as C. If software engineering is, in part, about levels of abstraction, C++ is at a very low level of abstraction. As long as we continue to think of software in terms of computers instead of in terms of the required solutions, we will be stuck with a model of software that continues to focus on the low-level issues. When I first began to learn Ada, coming to it as an old-fashioned programmer, it was a strange and difficult transition. My first inclination was to look for ways I could leverage Chapter 13 for my code. It took a while to understand the finer points of the language. Once I was able to understand those, it seemed strange to me that I used to write programs in a different way. Sadly, those LMCO managers on Aegis who made the decision for C++ instead of Ada simply don't understand Ada. They are still thinking in terms of programming languages, not in terms of engineered software. This is true of most of the DoD contractors I have known over the past twenty+ years. They have no idea of the benefits of software engineering, something they can do with Ada better than with most other options. It is a matter of ignorance, nothing more. If they did understand the difference, there would never have been abandonment of Ada in favor of C++. So, instead of learning how to apply good software engineering principles, most of them have behaved like human lemmings, blindly following the idiotic choices made by those in the software industry who also know little about engineering, but a lot about programming. Until the DoD, and industry in general, begins to take more of an engineering approach to the development of software, we will continue to wrestle in our bedclothes with the software nightmares that continue to haunt us, only to wake in the morning and discover that our best efforts to control those nightmares have consummated themselves in nothing more than a simple wet-dream. Richard Riehle