Re: Gauntlet gathering rust and dust

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

>>
>>One point though, the larger the amount of classified Ada use, the
>>lower the non-defense programming language gross domestic product for
>>Ada will be (even lower than my current guess of 2%).  So the more Ada
>>is actually used inside the DoD, the worse will be its track record
>>outside the Mandated world.  So this line of arguing actually hurts Ada.

>     Excuse me?  This is an argument that I haven't seen before and I don't
>follow it.  Could you explain how the classified use of Ada will hurt Ada
>for non-defense projects?

Classified use of Ada does not hurt potential use of Ada for non-defense
projects (and in fact would help), but it does hurt statistics of Ada use
in the non-defense world, at least according to the way I calculate such
things.

For example, I recently counted 125 C/C++ jobs in the Boston Globe help
wanted ads, and 5 Ada jobs, for a ratio of 25:1 (a ratio that has
been at this level for years).  Now assume half of all Ada jobs are actually
DoD related.  That means that the ratio for Ada use in the non-defense
world gets "worse", to 50:1.  You now tell me that Ada is used for a lot
of classified projects I don't know about, but for which some Boston area
companies will be hiring.  This makes the ratio even worse.  (Of course,
my ratios have to be adjusted for that great national, top top secret, the
percent use of C/C++ in classified DoD projects).

    So the more classified Ada work going on, the worse the interpretation
is of the dismal demographic statistics I have been collecting on Ada are.
So when the original person critique me for ignoring the impact of classified
Ada projects, my response was that it cuts both ways.

    Though for the most part, this is a argument mostly for statisticians.
-- 
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 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178