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=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,1f00e12fa1e87526,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news2.google.com!proxad.net!usenet-fr.net!news.enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: Stephen Leake Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Dr Dobbs dismisses Ada Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 09:52:37 -0400 Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1116165189 91582 212.85.156.195 (15 May 2005 13:53:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 13:53:09 +0000 (UTC) To: "comp.lang.ada" Return-Path: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (windows-nt) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11045 Date: 2005-05-15T09:52:37-04:00 In the May 2005 issue of Dr Dobbs magazine, the "embedded space" column by Ed Nisley has a brutal dismissal of Ada: the entire cadre of Ada programmers is reaching retirement age with no replacements on tap. You can access the article at http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=9698/ddj0505p/0505p.html - you'll have to pay and/or register if you are not a subscriber. I sent this letter to the editor: In "Reliability: The Hard and the Soft", in the May 2005 issue, Ed Nisley dismisses Ada for DO-178B applications, saying "the entire cadre of Ada programmers is reaching retirement age with no replacements on tap". I'm surprised that Ed is propagating this myth. For one example, I'm not "nearing retirement age", and I've got two young engineers on my team, happily learning Ada and hard real-time programming. The AdaCore Academic Initiative (http://www.adacore.com/academic_members.php) has over 70 member universities, all training new Ada programmers. The Ada 2006 standard will be released next year, adding Java-style interfaces to the language, along with other significant improvements. Many Ada vendors are making money and growing; see http://www.adaic.com/index.html for current information on the state of the Ada industry. The SPARK (http://www.praxis-his.com/sparkada/) subset of Ada is directly targeted to high-integrity systems, and is growing in popularity; several tool vendors are incorporating it (for example, ILogix - see http://www.ilogix.com/newsroom/newsroom_detail.cfm?pressrelease=2004_09_29_035924_126720pr.cfm). Dr Dobbs has always been good at helping programmers learn which tools are appropriate for their job. Ada is clearly a good tool for DO-178B applications, as well as many other applications. To dismiss Ada in this way is a disservice to your readers, and ultimately to the people who will be using the systems built by your readers. It would help if other Dr Dobbs subscribers wrote in as well. -- -- Stephe