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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8aca4ec6918c7650 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-04-05 08:44:27 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!scsing.switch.ch!news.univie.ac.at!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!wupost!uunet!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Re: Need "Ammo" for the choice Ada vs. C++ In-Reply-To: dww@math.fu-berlin.de's message of Sun, 4 Apr 1993 16:05:43 GMT Message-ID: Sender: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Organization: The World References: Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 15:53:00 GMT Date: 1993-04-05T15:53:00+00:00 List-Id: 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