Re: decline of Ada?

[jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <DavidC.159.32806FF8@ise.canberra.edu.au> DavidC@ise.canberra.edu.au (David Clark) writes:

> Below is a report on the future of Ada by the "Committee on the Past
> and Present Contexts for the Use o fAda in the Department of
> Defense".  It's first recommendation is to "Continue to require Ada
> for its warfighting software and drop the Ada requirement for its
> other software".  It is not hard to surmise that this is a serious
> blow to Ada, and that the use of Ada will decline.

Could be, but really, Ada has to make it in the commercial market
independent of so called "mandates" (which were never enforced
anyway).  So, this could actually be a _good_ thing for Ada - the less
association with the government the better :-)


> Is this good or bad news for Eiffel? I suspect that it is bad
> news. It says that even the support of the DoD is not enough to
> ensure the wide acceptance of a language unless it is promoted by
> one of the big players. I hope, very much, that Eiffel will be an
> exception.  David

Part of the problem is that the DoD never really gave Ada much support
yet tainted it's image by associating it with "the government".


/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
Belmont, MA 02178
617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com