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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr11.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <1169531612.200010.153120@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: How come Ada isn't more popular? X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.134.135.166 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr11.news.prodigy.net 1169570964 ST000 70.134.135.166 (Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:49:24 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:49:24 EST Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: SCSGW^WETZSMB_DX]BCBNWX@RJ_XPDLMN@GZ_GYO^ZUDUWYAKVUOPCW[ML\JXUCKVFDYZKBMSFX^OMSAFNTINTDDMVW[X\THOPXZRVOCJTUTPC\_JSBVX\KAOTBAJBVMZTYAKMNLDI_MFDSSOLXINH__FS^\WQGHGI^C@E[A_CF\AQLDQ\BTMPLDFNVUQ_VM Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:49:24 GMT Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8431 Date: 2007-01-23T16:49:24+00:00 List-Id: "Stephen Leake" wrote in message news:uy7nucb8e.fsf@stephe-leake.org... > > Or, in managers, "everyone else is using C, so it must be the best > language". When I point out that far more programs are written in > Visual Basic, or Excel, they look very puzzled :). > One of the long-forgotten success stories in Ada was at Xerox, another company that has a history of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. A team of developers at Xerox decided to use Ada for the software on a new Xerox copier. The project was a resounding success and every team member was enthusiastic about the potential for software on other Xerox projects. There were analyses showing how Ada was more cost-effective than C or other alternatives. It looked as if Ada might have found its niche in commercial software development. Not so. In spite of all the evidence in support of Ada, some idiot higher up in management decreed that all software must be written in C. He had no understanding of Ada. All he knew was that it was a DoD language and he wanted no part of it. This story has repeated itself over and over. As noted, a lot of people are reluctant to use a language designed for "killing and maiming." It is silly, of course, but programming aptitude has never been a good predictor for sensible decision-making. There is a shortage of Ada programmers, so Lockheed-Martin made the decision to use C++ on some of our major weapon systems. Not a particularly wide decision. They have discovered that, for the software to be dependable, they must cripple C++ to the point where it is being used as a "better C" and they have lost all the alleged benefits of C++ except one: the larger population of university-trained C++ programmers. Academia has been no better. As long as the DoD funded projects related to Ada, professors were happy to take the money. Once the funding vanished, those professors redirected their efforts to projects using newer whiz-bang languages that looked good when they submitted papers for publication. I recently had the opportunity to teach a beginning class in Java. What I discovered is that Java is not type safe, and includes a lot more opportunities for programming errors than Ada. It is not any better designed than Ada, but it does have a lot of libraries. Most important, it is easier to get a paper published if it mentions Java than if it mentions Ada. A few years ago I was invited to submit a paper to a conference by the conference chairperson. I was told not to mention Ada. For a variety of reasons, there is a lot of ignorance and bias regarding Ada and it will not be easy to overcome. One bright spot is that SPARK has achieved a high level of respectability and SPARK is an Ada-based environment. Richard Riehle