Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu>]

I am meeting more and more DoD managers and contractors who, at the
management level, are concerned with whether Ada has the staying
power required for them to select it for important projects. While
many of them agree that Ada is probably superior to C++, that superiority
may prove to be of marginal value when weighed against the availability
of tools for C++, programmers in C++, and the myriad of other resources
for C++.  

These managers are asking whether Ada will be around for the next ten
years, and if it is, whether there will be cost-effective tools and
compilers to make Ada a good business decision.  They are convinced that
C++ will not go away.  And they believe that C++, with all of its
liabilities, will continue to get better.  This is a powerful argument.

One senior executive at a DoD contracting site asked me to name three
Ada compiler vendors. It was easy to name three, but I realized that
the field has narrowed.  Now name three software companies who provide
testing tools for Ada.  What about three providers of configuration
management tools?  What about other third-party tools?

It is significant, I think, that so many compiler publishers are
paying attention to the need for support of Microsoft Win32 platforms
such as NT. But what about the other software companies who might be
creating tools that work with these compilers?  

Perhaps I am simply encountering a lot of such criticism because of the
kind of work I do.  Maybe there are lots more program managers out there
who are enthusiastically embracing Ada.  Someone tell me, please, that
I am simply worrying from too small a sample size.

Richard Riehle