From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,f49c8f164340c377 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!out04a.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!in04.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <1187726191.464593.16480@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> <1187850312.375316.57440@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Current status of Ada? X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3138 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.134.96.57 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com 1188150663 ST000 70.134.96.57 (Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:51:03 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:51:03 EDT Organization: AT&T http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: O@Y[R^[GZRRER_H]]RKB_UDAZZ\DPCPDLXUNNH\KMAVNDQUBLNTC@AWZWDXZXQ[K\FFSKCVM@F_N_DOBWVWG__LG@VVOIPLIGX\\BU_B@\P\PFX\B[APHTWAHDCKJF^NHD[YJAZMCY_CWG[SX\Y]^KC\HSZRWSWKGAY_PC[BQ[BXAS\F\\@DMTLFZFUE@\VL Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:51:38 -0700 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:1564 Date: 2007-08-26T10:51:38-07:00 List-Id: "Harald Korneliussen" wrote in message news:1187850312.375316.57440@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com... > On Aug 22, 2:53 am, "Jeffrey R. Carter" > wrote: > >> And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive >> advantage and keep it secret. > > Are you sure? It seems to me it's in the companies' best interests to > say whether they are using Ada, since Ada developers are tricky to get > hold of. Keeping it secret seems to me both difficult (what do you > write in the job ads?) and counterproductive. > I once had a commercial client that required a non-disclosure agreement about their use of Ada because of competitive reasons. In their view, their competitors would use this fact against them as a sales gimmick. The fear was that the competitors would ridicule them for "using a language that was not part of the mainstream and had been rejected by the Department of Defense." Note that, when Emmett Paige wrote his famous memo abrogating the Ada mandate, the memo was widely interpreted as the equivalent of the DoD admitting that Ada was a mistake, and direct abandonment of its use for future DoD projects. Although that was not the intent of the memo, that interpretation is now widespread both within and outside the DoD. It is unfortunate that the memo was written in a way that left it open to Ada's enemies to misinterpret. The damage done is widespread. The educational institution where I teach once required Ada of its students. Now the language is almost non-existent except in a two-week portion of an eleven week class that I teach. No one else in our computer science department gives it any credibility at all. The real-time software projects are now being written in Java. The funding for research will not support anything with the Ada language involved. The newly-hired faculty members regard Ada as a quaint era of the past, not something to be taken seriously. I have been an Ada advocate for about twenty years, but it is becoming clear that, without some miracle or absent someone in the DoD coming to their senses, the use of the language will continue to decline both in the commercial world and in the DoD. When I was still consulting and teaching Ada, one of my major clients, a DoD contractor building one of our major weapons systems, switched from Ada to C++. It was a massively stupid decision. But the man who was previously in charge, who understood the value of Ada, retired. His successor knew little about Ada and was a strong advocate of C++. Without the mandate in place, he could blithely ignore the wisdom of using Ada and demand that everything be written in C++. I asked the question, at the time, "What makes you think you can use a language such as C++ that is inherently error-prone, and expect a result that is error-free." My credibility suffered from my resistance to C++. The more I saw of, and continue to see of, C++, the more I realize how dangerous the language is and how wrong-headed it is to use C++ for military software systems, but my opinion carries no weight. At the same time, in an effort to offset the known dangers of C++, many DoD organizations and their contractors have chosen Java. This is also a dumb decision, but the new real-time features of Java make it more difficult to clarify the points that make Ada a better choice. There is no single strong advocate for Ada at present. There is no powerful corporate sponsor as there is for Java. There is no major Ada project that is visible to the larger community of software developers. The language is seen as "old-fashioned" and out-of-date by those who have graduated within that past ten to fifteen years. It is an oddity. The damage to Ada was the result of many factors. The AJPO never quite got it right. The DoD certainly never got it right. The infighting between Ada vendors never helped. The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices for their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada: COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable. Most PC versions of Ada had less capability for building PC applications directly than BASIC. With exception of the Meridian Compiler, there were no good libraries for creating MS-DOS applications. Even Meridian got it wrong by defining the data type for system address incorrectly. With Ada 95, the designers and contributors to the design of the language did get a lot of things right. Ada finally became a language for the ordinary programmer. The time was also right. A lot of people renewed their interest in the language. Then, grabbing defeat from the jaws of potential victory, the letter from Mr. Paige muddled the entire decision-making process. A delay of two or three years before writing that kind of letter might have made a difference. Instead, the developer community ran as fast as it could to find other options. JSF is being developed in C++. A truly dumb decision. Missile Defense Agency has completely abandoned Ada. As noted in an earlier post, I made an inquiry some time ago about the current state of Ada usage. I am constrained from publishing the names of projects that are using Ada, but I was suprised to find that there are still quite a few. Unfortunately, such constraints do not help to promote the awareness that Ada is real and continues to be a valuable tool for building software systems. I promote it whenever I can for my own students and have had thesis students do their M.S. thesis using Ada. I make it clear in all of my software engineering classes that Ada continues to be the most effective language when one needs to take an engineering view of the software process. But individual professors of computer science are of little importance in the effort to improve the state of Ada utilization and awareness. We need some kind of larger effort. The Ada Resource Association (or whatever it is currently called) has proven ineffectual. The AdaIC web site, while in capable hands, has no pro-active role. And the Ada compiler publishers seem to be ashamed to admit, broadcast, or let anyone know that they have Ada products. When is the last time that Rational had any information about its Ada compiler at a conference or trade-show? When is the last time that any Ada compiler publisher had a booth at a trade-show? When have we last seen any publicity about the value of Ada for some major project? Where has anyone seen an Ada textbook for sale in a bookstore? Even the computer-centric bookstores have no books on Ada -- none. As long as Ada remains invisible the number of projects will decline. As long as officials in the DoD believe that Ada is not supposed to be used for military projects anymore (many believe just that), Ada will be in decline. This is truly unfortunate. Ada continues to be the best hope as a language for software engineering. In my view, it is still the best language for use in safety-critical, mission-critical, and military software systems. It offers a lot to commercial software developers, as well. How we get that message out, now that there is no powerful sponsor and no effective Ada consortium, I don't know. At one time, I used to write a lot of articles about the value of Ada for software magazines such as JOOP, HP Professional, Embedded Systems Programming, and others. That seemed to help a little. I have yet to see anyone publish an article about the Ada 2005 standard -- even in DoD publications. It is as if it never happened. I no longer have the time to devote to Ada since my role has changed. I am no longer directly involved in Ada, though I continue to promote it whenever I can. I can still teach it in some of my classes, but I get the question from my colleagues, "Why are we bothering with that old language?" At present, I am the last hold-out for keeping Ada in some small part of our curriculum. When I am gone, Ada will also be gone. Or as newer faculty members take over my courses, Ada will vanish entirely. I wish I could outline an action plan instead of posting a tale of lament. Perhaps someone from this forum can come up with a solution for improving the situation. I wonder if someone might write and publish some articles about the new standard and the continuing viability of the language? Maybe we can get someone in the DoD, someone with a brain in their head who understands software, to reinvigorate and reinstate the interest and committment to Ada. I would hope so, but it is a faint hope at this point. Richard Riehle