Re: Future with Ada

["Ken Pinard" <ken@pinard.com>]

I still find it amazing that Companies feel that they are trapped into using
a language because of "Trained" available programmers.  Companies want Ada
because of what it offers, but never want to train individuals on how to use
it. If companies actually compare costs, it is cheaper to train programmers
to use Ada.

The Boeing 777 aircraft was developed using Ada. It was done in half the
time with only an 1/8 of the problems of any previous commercial jet
aircraft. Boeing then decided that Ada was to expensive. The next project my
company worked on was in C++. After its completion, Boeing realized their
mistake (it had just as many problems as the original C code). They
commissioned our company to redo the software in Ada from the 777 source
code. Well, it was cheaper and most important it worked.

As another note, I was slated for the 777 upgrade after leaving the company.
I never got the job. It seems that it took 1/2 of the expected number of
programmers to do the upgrade in Ada then other projects with similiar
demands. It was also done in a fraction of the expected time.   There are
still people at Boeing that believe Ada is too expensive and takes longer.

There is still Ada work from the Boeing subcontractors. Finding them is the
fun part.

Just my 2cents worth

Ken Pinard

"Michael Card" <thehouseofcards@remove.this.part.mac.com> wrote in message
news:250220022121494455%thehouseofcards@remove.this.part.mac.com...
> Hey CLA-
>
> RE: Richard's & Ben's comments about a shortage of ada programmers:
>
> In article <3C0924D6.2B5A3087@adaworks.com>, Richard Riehle
> <richard@adaworks.com> wrote:
>
> > "ben@NO_SPAM_EMAIL" wrote:
> >
> > > That is funny. It is almost impossible to find any Ada wanted ads
these
> > > days.
> > > Actually there are more openings for almost any other language than
for Ada.
> > >
> > > Can you point to ONE commerical Ada opening right now that requires no
> > > active security clearance in the US? I bet you there is none.
> >
> > Over and over, we encounter companies who, after deciding to use Ada for
> > its technological advantages, cannot hire qualified Ada programmers.
Our
> > most recent experience was a company in Silicon Valley.  They were
excited
> > about using Ada, asked us to train some of the people, and then tried to
hire
> > more programmers to do Ada.   They found it nearly impossible to find
> > people with experience in their domain,  sufficient mathematics, and
lots
> > of experience in Ada.   Sadly, they finally decided to use C++ because
it
> > was so much easier to find programmers.
>
> I was wondering why it is perceived as undesirable to train new
> programmers in Ada? Certainly hiring an experienced S/W engineer who
> has only done C++ or Java, for example, would not require a significant
> additional investment to train them in Ada? If teh language really
> offers benefits, wouldn't those benefits more than offset the
> relatively small cost of buying 2-3 weeks of intense Ada training for
> the programmers?
>
> - Mike