Can an amateur find an Ada job?

Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Victor Porton]

In past years I used Ada 95 as an amateur.

Recently I've lost a PHP programming job.

Now after this I've applied to about 20 jobs (mostly related to PHP) and yet 
wait for answers to arrive. Maybe tomorrow I will start searching also for 
Perl jobs. I search for a part time telecommuting job.

But now I thought, it would be more interesting to do Ada programming than 
PHP programming, and salary for an Ada programming I think would be greater.

Does it make sense to re-read Ada Reference Manual to refresh my memory and 
attempt to find an Ada job, taking into account that I have not even 
finished university degree?

-- 
Victor Porton - http://portonvictor.org

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Jeffrey Carter]

On 12/30/2013 01:38 PM, Victor Porton wrote:
>
> I search for a part time telecommuting job.

If you find a part-time, telecommuting Ada position, let us know.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted,
people stampeded, and cattle raped."
Blazing Saddles
35

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

On 12/30/2013 2:38 PM, Victor Porton wrote:
> In past years I used Ada 95 as an amateur.
>
> Recently I've lost a PHP programming job.
>
<snip>

Why not look for Javascript work? It is closer to
what you've been doing. Javascript is the new future
of the world wide software engineering practices ;)

At indeed.com, searching:

"Javascript"    :  42,000
"Ada95"         :  1
Ada programming : 700

It is hard to search using just "Ada" since that gives
many hits for American Dental Association, or
American Diabetes Association or
Americans with Disabilities related names in the Ad.

But the above gives an idea.

good luck with your job search.

--Nasser

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2013 22:38:25 +0200, Victor Porton <porton@narod.ru>
declaimed the following:

>In past years I used Ada 95 as an amateur.
>
>Recently I've lost a PHP programming job.
>
>Now after this I've applied to about 20 jobs (mostly related to PHP) and yet 
>wait for answers to arrive. Maybe tomorrow I will start searching also for 
>Perl jobs. I search for a part time telecommuting job.
>
>But now I thought, it would be more interesting to do Ada programming than 
>PHP programming, and salary for an Ada programming I think would be greater.
>
>Does it make sense to re-read Ada Reference Manual to refresh my memory and 
>attempt to find an Ada job, taking into account that I have not even 
>finished university degree?

	Your last sentence may be the killer...

	My experience with Ada is that Ada knowledge is not the critical factor
(ie; they aren't looking for Ada "coders"); rather a good background in
software engineering (requirements analysis, broad exposure to the
industry) with a familiarity of multiple languages is of more weight.

	In my college programming languages course, I chose Ada as the language
to do a report upon... At the time, the SigPlan published preliminary
reference manual and rationale, and one slim text, were all that was
available (spring of 1980). In January of 1981, Lockheed sent five of us
(recent hires) to a formal class on the language. It took 22 years, a
layoff, rehire, and 2 more years before I ever got assigned to do Ada
related work (and that was on a system where an XML file was used to
generate the spec file, and a template body file to be filled in).

	I'm now with a company that uses Ada for some projects, though my
upcoming assignment appears to be C/C++. I've been with the company 8
months, and even with a 30-year history feel like a neophyte: 20 of my 30
years history was with "mainframe" (if a VAX/Alpha VMS systems are
"mainframe") number crunching applications, the last 5 years were
simulations for satellite interface using a simulated (external) clock; my
new job (after a second layoff) is real-time avionics; and I have no past
experience with that, I understand the concepts but it is a whole different
mind-set WRT coding (all dynamic allocations are done during
initialization, before entering the real processing main loop).

	In truth, the only assignment in the last 8 months that /I/ feel good
about used Python to generate traffic packets to feed to a "Cross Domain
Solution" box, collecting the sent/received packets via Wireshark, another
Python program to match up the outgoing to incoming packets, and a third
program to produce CSV files of the latency data for plotting within Excel.
The Ada related assignments fizzled out for time/funding.

-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[svaa]

Reading the replies, the short answer is NO. Period.

That's the present of Ada: A few jobs where employers can be as selective as they want because there are lot more of Ada guys than jobs.

Guess what's the future.

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 01/01/2014 21:34, svaa@ciberpiula.net a écrit :
> That's the present of Ada: A few jobs where employers can be as
> selective as they want because there are lot more of Ada guys than
> jobs.

I don't know how it is in your country, but at least in France it is
plain wrong. My partner company is constantly trying to hire people with
Ada skills, and I am making a lot of training sessions for companies
because they think that having Ada skill is a plus for their engineers.

If you are intersted by Ada jobs in France, by all means send your
resume to recrutement@adalog.fr !

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Victor Porton]

J-P. Rosen wrote:
> Le 01/01/2014 21:34, svaa@ciberpiula.net a écrit :
>> That's the present of Ada: A few jobs where employers can be as
>> selective as they want because there are lot more of Ada guys than
>> jobs.
> 
> I don't know how it is in your country, but at least in France it is
> plain wrong. My partner company is constantly trying to hire people with
> Ada skills, and I am making a lot of training sessions for companies
> because they think that having Ada skill is a plus for their engineers.
> 
> If you are intersted by Ada jobs in France, by all means send your
> resume to recrutement@adalog.fr !

What concerns personally me, I would not move to France due to lack of 
language knowledge.

I guess there are no telecommute jobs like this. Right?

So I have no incentive to re-read Ada Reference Manual. But by any means if 
it may open me any real part-time position (even if harder to find than PHP 
jobs), I would start to re-read Ada Manual tomorrow.

-- 
Victor Porton - http://portonvictor.org

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[dukeofpurl]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2014 1:53:03 PM UTC-7, J-P. Rosen wrote:

[snip]

> I don't know how it is in your country, but at least in France it is
> 
> plain wrong. My partner company is constantly trying to hire people with
> 
> Ada skills, and I am making a lot of training sessions for companies
> 
> because they think that having Ada skill is a plus for their engineers.

That's very encouraging, because I was ready to pipe in and ask why continue developing and supporting Ada - other than for enthusiasts.

Your message of hope should be more widely publicized IMHO!! 

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Wed, 01 Jan 2014 21:53:03 +0100, J-P. Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> a écrit:

> Le 01/01/2014 21:34, svaa@ciberpiula.net a écrit :
>> That's the present of Ada: A few jobs where employers can be as
>> selective as they want because there are lot more of Ada guys than
>> jobs.
>
> I don't know how it is in your country, but at least in France it is
> plain wrong. My partner company is constantly trying to hire people with
> Ada skills, and I am making a lot of training sessions for companies
> because they think that having Ada skill is a plus for their engineers.
>
> If you are intersted by Ada jobs in France, by all means send your
> resume to recrutement@adalog.fr !

I sent an e‑mail to another address, but wonder if it gets into the spam  
box, as I replied in French quoting an English message. Was just  
informations request accompanied by short personal details related to the  
topic, I won't post publicly here…


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Robert Love]

On 2014-01-01 20:53:03 +0000, J-P. Rosen said:

> Le 01/01/2014 21:34, svaa@ciberpiula.net a écrit :
>> That's the present of Ada: A few jobs where employers can be as
>> selective as they want because there are lot more of Ada guys than
>> jobs.
> 
> I don't know how it is in your country, but at least in France it is
> plain wrong. My partner company is constantly trying to hire people with
> Ada skills, and I am making a lot of training sessions for companies
> because they think that having Ada skill is a plus for their engineers.
> 
> If you are intersted by Ada jobs in France, by all means send your
> resume to recrutement@adalog.fr !

If France ever wants to outsource jobs to the U.S. we're ready.  We'll 
subcontract, telecomute whatever you want to call it.

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 03/01/2014 03:51, Robert Love a écrit :
> If France ever wants to outsource jobs to the U.S. we're ready.  We'll
> subcontract, telecomute whatever you want to call it.

We are providing resources to our clients, who are mainly based in the
vicinity of Paris (mostly in the Railway business). There are also
offers around Toulouse in the Aerospace industry.

Those clients are not ready to outsource safety-critical, real-time
development (fortunately - for us).

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Robert Love]

On 2014-01-03 06:26:46 +0000, J-P. Rosen said:

> Le 03/01/2014 03:51, Robert Love a écrit :
>> If France ever wants to outsource jobs to the U.S. we're ready.  We'll
>> subcontract, telecomute whatever you want to call it.
> 
> We are providing resources to our clients, who are mainly based in the
> vicinity of Paris (mostly in the Railway business). There are also
> offers around Toulouse in the Aerospace industry.
> 
> Those clients are not ready to outsource safety-critical, real-time
> development (fortunately - for us).

I understand but it is fun to think about.    My mother was a French 
teacher and I never learned the language.  I should be kicking myself 
now.

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 30 Dec 2013 21:38:25 +0100, Victor Porton <porton@narod.ru> a  
écrit:

> In past years I used Ada 95 as an amateur.
>
> Recently I've lost a PHP programming job.
>
> Now after this I've applied to about 20 jobs (mostly related to PHP) and  
> yet
> wait for answers to arrive. Maybe tomorrow I will start searching also  
> for
> Perl jobs. I search for a part time telecommuting job.
>
> But now I thought, it would be more interesting to do Ada programming  
> than
> PHP programming, and salary for an Ada programming I think would be  
> greater.
>
> Does it make sense to re-read Ada Reference Manual to refresh my memory  
> and
> attempt to find an Ada job, taking into account that I have not even
> finished university degree?
>

Additionally to the different point of views already provided:

You may also be convinced by yourself of the value Ada (and some others  
things like formal methods) adds to software quality (implicitly, useful  
software) and don't only wait for someone telling you what would be useful  
to do and also attempt to do it yourself.

In case you don't already know, unlike the Apple software store which is  
restricted to C and Objective‑C applications, the Ubuntu software store  
allows anything supported by GCC, which includes… Ada. You still may have  
to restrict yourself to what's well supported by the Ada compiler which  
comes with the targeted Ubuntu version (a common LTS at the time of  
writing, is Ubuntu 12.04, and it did not fully supports Ada 2012 the last  
time I tried).

Good luck.


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Luke A. Guest]

Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57 ) 
> In case you don't already know, unlike the Apple software store which is 
> restricted to C and Objective‑C applications, the Ubuntu software store  
> allows anything supported by GCC, which includes… Ada. You stillmay have  
> to restrict yourself to what's well supported by the Ada compiler which 
> comes with the targeted Ubuntu version (a common LTS at the time of  
> writing, is Ubuntu 12.04, and it did not fully supports Ada 2012 the last  
> time I tried).

Apparently they had to drop this when they introduced ruby into their
gaggle of supported languages.

Luke

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Lucretia]

On Monday, 30 December 2013 20:38:25 UTC, Victor Porton  wrote:
> In past years I used Ada 95 as an amateur.
> 
> Recently I've lost a PHP programming job.
> 
> Now after this I've applied to about 20 jobs (mostly related to PHP) and yet 
> wait for answers to arrive. Maybe tomorrow I will start searching also for 
> Perl jobs. I search for a part time telecommuting job.
> 
> But now I thought, it would be more interesting to do Ada programming than 
> PHP programming, and salary for an Ada programming I think would be greater.
> 
> Does it make sense to re-read Ada Reference Manual to refresh my memory and 
> attempt to find an Ada job, taking into account that I have not even 
> finished university degree?

While we are sure that there are no part-time jobs for Ada programmers and there is no chance to do telecommute and the places where Ada is used are generally some of the weirdest places to live, i.e. socially-wise, like in England, Fareham??? WTF? Anyways...

Ada needs to be extended into new areas to produce these new jobs! Why should Ada stick to military, aero-space, rail, etc? Why can't it be extended into small embedded applications, like small ARM/MIPS boards (or smaller)? Why can't it be extended into the games industry (apart from the bigoted view by the C and C++ programmers who think they're better than the rest of us who still, by the way, are still having bounds errors, leaks and other compile time problems)? What about film and TV? Audio?

Seriously, be one of the enlightened, create something with this language and help to increase it's usage and maybe it'll just produce a job or two somewhere for us.

Otherwise, we may as well all just leave the language behind as a bad job and design a new one that's better than all the rest and not weird like Haskell or PROLOG or one that's not just a "let's make C safe."

Luke.

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Sat, 04 Jan 2014 03:00:22 +0100, Lucretia <laguest9000@googlemail.com>  
a écrit:
> Otherwise, we may as well all just leave the language behind as a bad  
> job and design a new one that's better than all the rest and not weird  
> like Haskell or PROLOG or one that's not just a "let's make C safe."

Two cents off‑topic: Haskell and Prolog are not weird, that's just the  
areas they are well suited for, which may be weird to you ;) . By the way,  
the same for Ada, it is not The Universal Solution, it is “just” one of  
the best solution (not difficult to be better than untyped and  
unstructured languages any way) and this best solution “just” happens to  
cover a wide area. It's like a language with embedded safety methods  
(type, opacity, etc) for those who don't know any method or who don't  
bother applying one or prefer to save something. That is, it is indeed the  
best solution for many areas. But others are not weird, they are different  
and match their areas differently (and better than Ada *in their own  
areas*).

That's not the topic here, still to give you a track, there exist things  
looking similar to SPARK in many way, which generates Haskell, SML or  
Scala from kind of mathematical proofs, and the result is even much safer  
than regular Ada (Ada without SPARK checking). These technologies often  
refers to Prolog like things embedded in their core (SPARK, the software  
suits, is mostly implemented in Prolog too!).


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Chris Moore]

On 04/01/2014 02:00, Lucretia wrote:
<snip>
> While we are sure that there are no part-time jobs for Ada programmers
 > and there is no chance to do telecommute and the places where Ada is
 > used are generally some of the weirdest places to live,
 > i.e. socially-wise, like in England, Fareham??? WTF? Anyways...
<snip>

LOL.  Cosham, Portsmouth checking in; just a short distance from 
Fareham.  It's nice to know we're a hotbed of Ada activity around here. 
  Maybe it's *because* we're the weirdest place to live socially-wise? 
Introverts the lot of us!

I'm guessing the Fareham job is the NATS air traffic control system. 
Meawhile I'm working on various Naval systems in Ada.  And I know there 
are railway systems developed hereabouts too.  It can be done (but I do 
have a degree).

Chris



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Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Lucretia]

> LOL.  Cosham, Portsmouth checking in; just a short distance from 
> Fareham.  It's nice to know we're a hotbed of Ada activity around here. 
>   Maybe it's *because* we're the weirdest place to live socially-wise? 
> Introverts the lot of us!
> 
> I'm guessing the Fareham job is the NATS air traffic control system. 

Arf! I just looked to see where Fareham is, never heard of it before, thought it be in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Bristol and Devon. Anyways, ok, Portsmouth is supposed to be nice, it's near the coast and close to Isle of Wight! Well, It's doable I spose, but If I were to do a move that big, I'd rather go international and do a proper job of it tbh, plus it would get me out this hole of a country (I'm that disillusioned by the place to give it a go tbh).

But to go from one end of the country to the other is a big move, especially when you know nobody there.

Luke.

Re: Can an amateur find an Ada job?

[Mike H]

In message <d17ab6a9-eab6-4c9c-92c8-181a58c3677e@googlegroups.com>, 
Lucretia <laguest9000@googlemail.com> writes
>Arf! I just looked to see where Fareham is, never heard of it before, 
>thought it be in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Bristol and 
>Devon. Anyways, ok, Portsmouth is supposed to be nice, it's near the 
>coast and close to Isle of Wight! Well, It's doable I spose, but If I 
>were to do a move that big, I'd rather go international and do a proper 
>job of it tbh, plus it would get me out this hole of a country (I'm 
>that disillusioned by the place to give it a go tbh).
>
>But to go from one end of the country to the other is a big move, 
>especially when you know nobody there.
>
And a few miles along the coast is Christchurch. That is/was an Ada 
hot-house and where I had my last contract before retiring 15 years ago. 
The job was to air defence for the Norwegians and some of us needed NATO 
security clearance. As I recall it, every other project in the shop was 
Ada based.

-- 
The moving finger keys; and, having keyed, keys 'send';
nor all one's piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
nor all one's tears wash out one word of it. Mike