Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada?

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org>]

svaa@ciberpiula.net (svaa) writes:

> Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org> wrote in message news:<mailman.19.1110679175.23655.comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org>...
>
> Denying reality is not a way to solve problems

I did not deny anything, I merely pointed out some sources of
information that you appeared to be unaware of.

>> AdaCore is also growing.
>> 
>
> So borland does, so sun does, so C++ does, so Java does, so others do.

Yes, that's true. So what?

Rod Chapman made an interesting point. Ada has less than 0.1% of the
programmer market. BMW has less than 0.1% of the car market. Is BMW a
failure, or a successful niche player? Ada is a successful niche
player.

> The fact that AdaCore is growing may only mean that AdaCore is
> collecting all potential Ada custumers that doesn't have any other
> company. Perhaps AdaCore is growing not because a new Ada golden age,
> but at expenses of companies that doesn't work with Ada anymore. 

"Perhaps", yes. Do you have any data?

> The market of Ada is so small the there is only room for a few
> companies. When a company stops developing with Ada, the rest of
> companies, that still use Ada, grow a little.

The market for high-end cars is also small.

> You live in bubble. You should read another articles too. Not only
> those that tell that Ada is lingering, but those about Java, about
> C++, about C, about PHP about Perl, about Ruby, about pyton...

I read Dr Dobbs, and The Economist. 

> This look like Esperanto. I played a little with Esperanto. Thanks to
> internet Esperanto is growing. So what?. If you live inside esperanto
> movement, the Esperanto has a lot of associations, literature etc. You
> see esperanto everywhere, and you conclude that esperanto is quite
> alive. If you look esperanto from outside, esperanto is irrelevant.

Hmm. Does "irrelevant" mean "dead"? I don't think so.

If you don't want to join us in our Ada "bubble", fine. But have the
grace to leave us alone :).

> If you program most of time with Ada, 

True for me.

> work on a company/organization that works with Ada, 

Not true for me.

> you read articles that support Ada, you go to conferences about Ada,
> accept good news about Ada, 

I wish I could; where are they?

> but filter bad news about Ada. 

Not true for me.

> You will conclude that Ada is quite alive.

True for me.

There seems to be a problem with your logic.

> If you look Ada from outside, you see that Ada is lingering, that it's
> difficult to find a job for Ada, 

"a job for Ada"? Do you mean "a job that requires Ada knowledge"? 

Any problem that requires programming is potentially "a job for Ada";
those are certainly not hard to find.

Any job that requires a particular programming language is not one I'm
interested in; I'm interested in using the best tool for the job.

If that means I'm in a "bubble", fine.

> and if you find it, 99% will be to support legacy systems, and
> probably until they move to another language. 

Where is your data coming from?

> You can find a thousand tools and libraries for any language and
> choose. For Ada you must go to half a dozen sites/companies and take
> what you find there.

Yes, and it is still the best tool for the job I'm doing.

> NOACE movement is a good show of what's going on related to Ada. For
> each new project in Ada with a big hype in Ada related conferences,
> congresses, and websites, you can find 100 projects that are giving up
> Ada silently. 

Hmm. If they are "silent", how do you find them?

If that statistic were true for the last several years, no Ada company
would be in business now, since no company can lose 99% of its
business several years in a row and survive. That is demonstratably
false; just look at the AdaIC list of Ada compiler companies; it has
been stable for the last several years.

So I conclude your statistic is not true.

> In demography, more deaths than births is called negative growth.

Yes, but you have not presented actual evidence, just your opinion.

-- 
-- Stephe