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,df1a7f1c3c3bc77e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!newscon04.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr22.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <1178448459.256329.28590@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: An Ada Advice Inquiry X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.134.133.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr22.news.prodigy.net 1178462889 ST000 70.134.133.137 (Sun, 06 May 2007 10:48:09 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 06 May 2007 10:48:09 EDT Organization: AT&T http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: SCSGW^WETZSMB_DX]BCBNWX@RJ_XPDLMN@GZ_GYO^JWTEPIB_NVUAH_[BL[\IRKIANGGJBFNJF_DOLSCENSY^U@FRFUEXR@KFXYDBPWBCDQJA@X_DCBHXR[C@\EOKCJLED_SZ@RMWYXYWE_P@\\GOIW^@SYFFSWHFIXMADO@^[ADPRPETLBJ]RDGENSKQQZN Date: Sun, 6 May 2007 07:47:40 -0800 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:15596 Date: 2007-05-06T07:47:40-08:00 List-Id: "Maciej Sobczak" wrote in message news:1178448459.256329.28590@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com... > On 6 Maj, 07:00, wrote: > >> we continue to see people making >> decisions in favor of inferior languages such as C++. > > Of course, and don't expect it to change anytime soon. > > There is one thing that I miss in this discussion. You asked for > "advice" on comp.lang.ada. What "answer" do you expect *here*? > It's just about the same useful as asking on comp.lang.perl whether it > makes sense to start a new project in Perl. Go and try. > My original inquiry was about whether any new projects are being started in Ada. I think the C++ people would be unlikely to have an answer to that question. What I have learned, from contributions to me inbox and comments in this forum, is that a great many new projects are being started in Ada. As usual, quite a few of my correspondents have asked not to be quoted/cited. I have also had some "buyer's remorse" messages. That is, more than a few of those email messages have said how disappointed they are with the decision to use C++ instead of Ada. The C++ decision has not been as sucessful as they had hoped, and there is some wishful thinking that they would have been better to have stayed with Ada. Now that the code is written in C++, they have to live with the agony of C++ while longing for the ecstasy of Ada. I suppose the "grass is always greener" effect is a human trait that will endure for as long as humans inhabit the planet. I did send another email to my colleague yesterday summarizing the comments from this forum and from the contributions to my inbox. This morning (Sunday), I received a few more messages with similar information. Again, I have been asked not to cite or attribute any of the information specific people. Some of these contributors are not corporate officers with official authorization to speak about the projects they are doing. Rather, they are worker-bees who are speaking for themselves, and revealing information that might get them fired. Therefore, I am stripping attribution from those kind of messages before providing it to my colleague, the person who originally made the inquiry of me. As to the suggestion that I make this inquiry of the C++ forums, my experience is that the vast number of C++ users are woefully ignorant about Ada. This is certainly the case where I am currently employed. On the other hand, C++ is so obnoxiously ubiquitous that a person who uses Ada cannot avoid C, C++, or Java. In my own case, I have to use C++, teach it in my classroom, and endure its messiness on a regular basis. The more I see of it, the more I learn of it, and the more deeply I am required to spend time with it, the more I realize how much better Ada is for most things. That being said, I also have come to like Python for a lot of my day-to-day programming. Ada is not perfect for every project. There are other languages that have great virtue for different kinds of projects. However, as nearly as I can tell, at this point in the world of programming, C++ has outlived its usefulness for most of the tasks for which it was once used. It has become the close equivalent of an object-oriented Assembler, forcing a lot of programmers to focus on low-level concerns that ought to be a marginal aspect of modern software engineering. Richard Riehle