Re: Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used?

[Warren <ve3wwg@gmail.com>]

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=?iso-8859-15?Q?Yannick_Duch=EAne_=28Hibou57=29?= expounded in
news:op.vc9u6lo2xmjfy8@garhos: 

> Le Tue, 25 May 2010 11:05:06 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov  
> <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a �crit:
>> People are bad, they were created to kill, steal, become obese and  
> 
>> program
>> in C. You cannot change that.
> Seems obvious this activity cannot be ripped apart the rest of the  
> world/humanity.

I don't know, but I think ppl tend to forget about the
things that influence choice (since that is really what
we are talking about). No one as a developer would say
that he likes to "choose inferior tools". He'll simply
challenge what is best or inferior.

And when discussing "best", one will not arrive at a single
answer anyway because so many other factors must also be
considered.

So by no means is this an exhaustive list of influences:

- ignorance (ppl don't embrace what they don't know)
- laziness (even when informed about it, no energy spent to give an 
honest consideration).
- perception (it can be perceived as old/bloated/military whatever)
- personal stake (why learn something with no local job market)
- resistance to compiler errors (many folks seem happier to debug 
instead).
- interface ease (the need to be good at writing bindings to C/C++)
- library/tools support (the quantity and quality of)
- crowd thinking (many not willing to defend an unpopular choice)

and probably much much more.

None of these really have much to do with Ada as technology
per se. Most of this (I think) is about popular perception.

Even the magazine writers, who should be more knowledgable,
tend to cast Ada in a negative light (as a "bloated language"
etc.). Or sometimes they confuse it with something else (like
perhaps "full PL/I"). This tends to reinforce the 
misconceptions.

Warren