Re: employment with ada

[DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com>]

On Mon, 5 May 2003 19:06:02 -0400, "William J. Thomsa"
<wjthomas@wcvt.com> wrote:

>
>> Any given Ada-speaking-only SW Engineer could and should be concerned
>> about:
>>
>> 1) Getting laid off in spite of the hot project - "stuff" can happen.
>>
>> 2) Wanting the freedom to decide they don't want to work at the same
>> place their whole career, and maybe live in some other state besides
>> Texas or Georgia or wherever.
>>
>> 3) Maybe wanting to not get underpaid because the employer knows you
>> don't have much of an option to go anywhere else because this, at 10
>> years later, is the only Ada island, or maybe one of the 3 remaining
>> Ada islands (and the other 2 are in places where it goes down to 38
>> below zero in the winter) in the country.
>>
>> 4) Maybe just plain getting tired of Ada programming but not being
>> able to leave with the narrow skillset.
>>
>> Dave Head
>
>Its not LMCO's job to worry about the marketability of their programming
>talent.

No, their employees are doing that for them - and some are leaving.
Their job is to worry about why those employees are leaving, and
hopefully stop it.  They think their strategy to dump Ada will work in
their favor.

>Its the programmers responsibility to keep themselves up to date

Which provides them with the reason to leave.  They can sit in the
basement and create the equivalent of Quake III in C++ but unless they
actually market it, they don't, on paper, have any C++ experience -
they have Ada experience because they work at LM on a project that
uses Ada.

>with the latest craze (like XML, C#), and to keep themselves marketable
>(like I have by learning all of those things at home, on my own time).
>
>It's LMCO's job to provide the country with the best weapon systems in the
>world.

They're going to try it via retaining employees and training them in
good SW engineering, while using a subset of C...

>The reasons they did not select Ada are bogus,

Well, I have to believe them, because that's what they said, and it
sounds pretty plausible to me.

>they should just come right
>out and tell everyone that its due to program managements short sightedness
>and be done with it.

Nevertheless, an extremely large defense contractor, that
traditionally builds very good warplanes, has elected to attempt the
next one in a subset of C.  Whatever the reason, Ada has failed to be
chosen by a bunch of people that have been programming in it for quite
some time.  They actually _switched_ languages to go with this C
subset.  It would seem they have the most experience and business
knowledge to choose the best way to accomplish their goals.  I can't
believe this is some whim, or nefarious plot.  I think its real.  I
think there's a good chance of other traditional Ada users following
suit.  That will cause a further decline in the demand for compilers
and other tools that speak Ada, so the downward spiral is likely to
accelerate.  It sucks, but that's the way its looking right now...

Dave Head

>WJT
>