Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics (why not Universities?)

["Ralph W. Reid" <rreid@sunset.net>]

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote:
[ . . . ]
> I think there is already enough "evidence". The problem as
> I see it, is one of acceptance. But perhaps, Universities
> can help some..
> 
> If more Universities would teach and use Ada in their
> curriculum, then people would come out of them knowing
> and preferring Ada.
> 
> In fact this is an area that surprises me most of all!
> 
> Why don't univesities naturally prefer Ada?!?!?

Around 12 years ago, I was working on my senior project in college,
which was to develope a class for Ada.  Ada had been used during the
previous semester for a class, but the HP-900/3XX system which housed
the compiler was heavily overloaded at times, causing compile and run
times to be annoyingly slow.  During my project, I asked the powers
that were if an Ada compiler could be put on a faster system.  The
response was that the cost of such a compiler then was $10,000--way
outside of any reasonable expense at the time.  As far as I know, I
was the last person to use Ada on any of the campus computers.  Gnat
has since come out, but once the Ada idea died due to cost, it was
never revived.

[ . . . ]