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From: Brian Rogoff <bpr@shellx.best.com>
Subject: Re: Is Ada likely to survive ?
Date: 1997/07/19
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.95.970719004420.11793B-100000@shellx.best.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 257665851
References: <33D005F2.E5DCD710@kaiwan.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-07-19T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


On Fri, 18 Jul 1997, safetran wrote:
> Hi all 
> 
> I am looking for opinions on whether you think the Ada language is going
> to be around in the next 5 years ?  How about 10 years ? 

Yes. Yes.

How many languages *haven't* survived? Cobol, Fortran, C, PL/1, and REXX
are still thriving. There is even a company selling Algol 68 compilers.
> 
> I appreciate that with the over 50 million lines of US DOD Ada code that
> exist and the numerous other Ada projects around the world,  Ada will be
> around for quite a while (to maintain all this code).   However, I am
> looking at it more from the point of view of new projects. 

Different question, to which I say yes and yes again. 

> I work for a **commercial** company in the US and we use Ada for
> embedded, real time applications.  I am now about to start a couple of
> new projects and need to decide whether I should continue the use of Ada
> or move to C/C++/Java.  Things that worry me are: 

Unless you are writing code for one of those embedded microprocessors with 
no Ada compiler, why do you want to switch? I assume you are using Ada 95, 
right?

> (1) Will the compiler vendors be around in the long run.  

I believe so, but there is a good free (as in free source) compiler, so 
you'll never be "orphaned". 

> (2)Its already difficult to find Ada programmers and many programmers do
> not want to work in Ada as it has lower market value. 

Its difficult for people who know Ada to find Ada jobs. So I think what 
we have here is a failure to communicate. 
 
> (3)My products have a life expectancy of over 10 years and so I need to
> find people to maintain the code in the long run. 

Ahem. I believe that Ada would be easier to maintain, but that is just my 
opinion. 
 
-- Brian