Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

["Richard Riehle" <adaworks@earthlink.net>]

"Georg Bauhaus" <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message
news:c4tpu9$sqq$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de...
> Alexander E. Kopilovich <aek@vb1162.spb.edu> wrote:
> :>requirement being that the product fufill some (but not necessarily all)
of
> :>its promises.
> :
> :
> :
> : professional traitorousness among CS teachers in American universities.
>
> What are the requirements in the minds of CS teachers?
> - A university job is not enough gratifying per se, so they need
>   to feel close to the software industry?

For the past several years, I have been teaching in a university where
Ada was originally a required subject.   When I first began teaching
at this institution, my classes were well-attended and students were
enjoying the opportunity to learn Ada.   The requirement for Ada was
eliminated a couple of years ago and attendance in the Ada classes
plummeted.

Many of the other faculty members have expressed a distaste for Ada,
some suggesting that the sooner it disappears forever, the better. When
I recommend that a student use Ada for a thesis project, unless I am the
thesis advisor, the student is told that Ada is not appropriate for serious
thesis work.  "Use Java or C++, but not Ada."

My school is not unique.   Throughout academia, Ada is falling victim
to a widespead misunderstanding of its value and capabilities.  One
might think that well-educated faculty members would know better,
but that seems not to be the case.

As long as industry is not using Ada, it is difficult to persuade academics
to promote it.   As long as academia fails to include Ada in the curriculum,
it is difficult to persuade, it is difficult to persuade industry of its
viability. We
have something of a stand-off between industy and academia.  It does not
help that some of our graduate students are bragging about how they are
"ripping out all that old Ada code" in this or that system and replacing it
with C++.

Some of the largest military contractors have decided to abandon Ada even
as they commend its value over competing technologies.  "We just cannot
hire experienced Ada programmers, and the universities don't teach it
anymore."    In their view it is cheaper and easier to find C++ programmers.
While this is a shortsigthed, perhaps even irresponsible management
decision,
for weapon systems development, the fact that the Pentagon has abandoned
all support for Ada gives those contractors good reason to go a different
direction.  From their view, the DoD is actually opposed to the use of Ada.
It is a wrong point-of-view, but it is widespread.

We need a statement from someone of influence in the U.S. DoD establishment
that affirms the value of Ada.  Unfortunately, no one will do this.  It is
not
politically expedient.  Furthermore, there may not be anyone left in the
Pentagon
that actually understands the importance of this issue.   As a consequence,
we
are likely to see, over the next decade, a series of software systems,
written in
C++ that are expensive to create, difficult to maintain, and highly
profitable for
military contractors.  It is an example, in the case of the U.S. DoD, of
"grabbing
defeat from the jaws of victory."   Ada could have been a powerful force for
software superiority.  Instead, they are allowing contractors to choose
whatever
technology is expedient, and, I fear, at the expense of long-term software
quality.

Richard Riehle