Need "Ammo" for the choice Ada vs. C++

Need "Ammo" for the choice Ada vs. C++

[Debora Weber-Wulff]

I don't need flames or smart remarks, but some good solid
arguments!

Friday was the first day of lectures for "Object-oriented
Software Engineering" in the 7th Semester at the TFH in
Berlin. Our goal was to take a very simple problem - programming
a calandar, and go through the OOA/OOD steps on it. Then
the groups were to split up and half program the design in
Ada, the other half in C++. No students know either language,
although there is some C and a lot of Pascal knowledge.

We found ourselves involved in a big fight: the students felt
that we were hurting their chances to get a good job by
making half use Ada! They could understand that we wanted to
do an experiment, but they did not want to be guinea pigs. 
"No one uses Ada", "We have no time to learn a new language,
and we already know C", "There are no job offers for Ada programmers,
but lots for C++ programmers", "Ada's not really object-oriented"
"It will take too much time to learn Ada and I have to earn
money at my job", and such were common complaints. We tried
the usual arguments: "It's not the learning of a specific
language that is important, it's the learning of the method",
"There are more and more companies programming in Ada, I
even met someone at the CeBIT who uses Ada", and so on.
 
 After 30 minutes we reached a truce: We will give an
 "advertising lecture" on Ada in two weeks time - and put
 it to a vote. I have the CACM from Nov. 92 (lots of good
 stuff!). So tell me: Why would you want students to learn Ada?
 And would you use it for an OO-project?

 Answers by news or mail to dww@informatik.tfh-berlin.dbp.de

 Thanks


-- 
Debora Weber-Wulff, Professorin fuer Softwaretechnik
snail: Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, FB Informatik, 
       Luxemburgerstr. 10, 1000 Berlin 65
email: dww@informatik.tfh-berlin.dbp.de 

Re: Need "Ammo" for the choice Ada vs. C++

[Gregory Aharonian]

    In a software engineering computer education setting (typical university
setting), I would teach Ada (or at least include Ada) for all of the reasons
you and others at c.l.a. mention (learn Ada - learn them all, better tie-ins
to software engineering concepts, continuity from Pascal which many students
are taught in high schools, etc).  The Ada procedural language helps best
illustrate those concepts you want students to retain when they leave school.
    In a vocational computer education setting, I would not teach Ada, for
all of the reasons your students and others mention.  The jobs at regular
companies, at software engineering companies, networking companies, database
companies, etc  all ask for C/C++/Smalltalk.  So for someone looking for
an education to get a job, where employees look at the specifics of the
resume and education, don't teach Ada.  With all of the layoffs around the
world, hiring managers when asking for someone to do something with C/C++,
can usually find many exact matches for their requisition, so that when
someone comes along with an Ada background and says he can learn C/C++, it
does not provide much of an advantage and even a detriment (an Ada background,
gee, the guy is probably from one of those cost overrunning, high overhead
rate defense companies not used to meeting deadlines :-)   )

    Like many other questions involving Ada, it is a socioeconomic question
(at least for the student) that best should be addressed that way.  That
the socioeconomics of Ada continually is ignored might even be a small
partial reason not to teach the language - if it results in such self-defeating
behavior by its adherents.

    Your students comments also reflect the perceptions of the management of
companies - perceptions right or wrong - are prevalent.  It is why the mostly
non-existent marketing and fostering of Ada outside the Mandated world is
a potential threat to national security - where the language is so easily
dismissed from the minds of the industrial base the DoD implicitly relies
on.
    In fact, Ada is being so mismanaged and misfostered and mis-everything
outside the Mandated world with apparent DoD tolerance that I would suspect
a communist mole inside the DoD except for the fact that all the commies
are gone - maybe it's a mole from Saddam Hussein  :-)    The DoD tolerance
of the behavior of its contractors in stifling Ada defies explanation (or 
at least a non-cynical explanation).

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178