Re: Languages don't matter. A mathematical refutation

[David Botton <david@botton.com>]

<<Java (not C) is probably Ada's main competition for big new 
projects these days, >>

Not really

Then, now and always, the reality is that the decision of what language to use is based on:

1) What tools and libraries to get things done exist. What Ichibiah called interfaces and clearly complained about their lack (see his famous letter to the 9X group). Most often the libraries/tools are found first and the language is dictated exclusively by this. (Rails, Django, Chip vendor's compiler, OS native language like objective-C / Swift, etc.)

2) What the staff whines about to their management that they want to use or are willing to use, usually because of popularity or next job prospects, sometimes because of technical reasons.

The only things that can override this are:

1. Mandates (and not really...)
2. Cost factors

So reality is that if Ada provides important #1s and cultivates #2 which is more about popularity and curiosity of staff can be generated than you get more Ada use.

So if you feel Ada would benefit the world of programming (or want your future jobs to be in Ada), you need to work on #1 and #2 as your marketing strategy not trying to see who can throw the "C" ball the farthest.

It's a popularity contest (ok and about greasing palms, like with free stuff for key people) always has been.

<<These people are not (IMHO, I know David B. would disagree) ever going to be 
Ada users. >>

Even in the niche market the last Ada vendor is still managing to swim in, the 2 factors of decision I mentioned are key. I watched people do so many stupid things with Java when it came out just because it was new and cool to know that unless those people you don't think will ever use Ada start thinking Ada is cool enough to want to try, than Ada will flat line soon enough. (and so my campaign for a face lift and some cool tools that I'm working on, to popularize an alternative free compiler suite, etc. I hope others will also think up some cool new bindings, libraries and tools to work on, or extend what others are doing and popularize their efforts).

David Botton