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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 103376,7ee10ec601726fbf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-08 16:36:32 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsmm00.sul.t-online.com!t-online.de!news.t-online.com!not-for-mail From: Michael Bode Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: is Ada dying? Date: 08 Oct 2001 07:45:59 +0200 Organization: Organized? Me? Sender: mb@jupiter.solar.system Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news.t-online.com 1002566898 05 17932 Pnv+S6YEb8AaEb 011008 18:48:18 X-Complaints-To: abuse@t-online.com X-Sender: 320025674319-0001@t-dialin.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:13972 Date: 2001-10-08T07:45:59+02:00 List-Id: "Ralph M�ritz" writes: > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that > Ada's parents (the U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold > in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses? Maybe this excerpt from the Jargon File explains why hackers are not mainly coding in Ada: (having programmed in C[++] some time I personally think is a good reason to give Ada a try) Ada n. A Pascal-descended language that has been made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one common description wss "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good small language screaming to get out from inside its vast, elephantine bulk.