Re: is Ada still being used for teaching at universities?

["Peter C. Chapin" <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> I made a survey of text books today at my university book store, and I 
> could not find a single book on Ada (nor on Fortran for that matter).

At Vermont Technical College Ada is not officially covered in any of our 
standard courses. However, I have presented it as an auxiliary topic in a 
few courses. One year, for example, I taught a special topics course in 
which the students built a weather station as a group project using Ada. I'm 
not the only faculty member who uses Ada in the classroom. We have an 
adjunct who uses the language in his business (he sees it as a competitive 
advantage) and also presents it in the courses he teaches when he can.

We have also made significant use of the Ada and SPARK in some special 
projects. Those projects have involved a number of students over the last 
few years but the projects are not a direct part of the curriculum.

Last year one of those students applied for a job at a shop where Ada was 
being used. The employer was interested in (and I think a little surprised 
by) the fact that he knew Ada but the position they were looking to fill did 
not require language. In the end he didn't get the job.

Another student told me that during an interview she proudly told the 
interviewer that she knew Ada (it had become her favorite language). 
Apparently he said, "Ada? Does anybody still use that?" So I guess it wasn't 
seen as an advantage in that situation. Alas.

> It looks like C/C++ is still popular for teaching, I find this amazing :)

We do a lot with C and C++ in our computer engineering technology program. 
C is so dominant in the world of embedded systems, device drivers, etc, that 
it would be negligent not to cover it.

Peter

P.S. The adjunct I mentioned earlier is a former VTC student who was first 
exposed to Ada in one of my classes.