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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.linkpendium.com!news.linkpendium.com!news.snarked.org!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!buffer2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!buffer1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2016 14:58:13 -0500 Subject: Re: New IEEE Language Popularity Ratings Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <31c22983-150c-4dab-abba-588e15f75914@googlegroups.com> From: Norman Worth Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:58:11 -0600 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-Rl42xU+mLzZQVV6tkPMsprxHAQ/YFLO2IHdWShsGeEhSygNZpdBvgaKkdOSVxfklm4ahNTOi+k3w/SU!xjfdR49P+9XH/p4SCUwUtu3oJCSmgLC3jRO186txeIK9XqU3D9GqYs0n5B/JOiyRlaObajP9DVI= X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 2852 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:31339 Date: 2016-08-09T13:58:11-06:00 List-Id: On 7/28/2016 9:05 AM, Alejandro R. Mosteo wrote: > On 28/07/16 16:58, brbarkstrom@gmail.com wrote: >> http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top-programming-languages-2016 >> > > You beat me to the punch! > >> >> has a 2016 ranking of languages. Top two are C, followed by Java. Ada >> is down near the bottom of the list, but at least it's slightly more >> popular than COBOL and FORTH. > > Well, it depends on the raking criterion :D COBOL is both trendier and > with better job perspectives X( > > Alex. > >> >> Bruce B. >> > Job preservation, and job availability, are key. Despite its advantages, there is not much being done in Ada, especially in the US. Europe is a bit better, but still declining. Even in the mission critical defense area, Ada has fallen out of use. This has been costly in terms of maintenance and reliability, but contractors feel they can not use Ada for personnel reasons. Also, they often do not want to use Ada because of a perceived lack of tools. That situation is not as bad as it used to be, but tools are still behind those available for C/C++, and the available tools are relatively unknown. GUI and database interfaces are also big issues. When I mention doing something in Ada, my very experienced peers shudder. They have never been trained in the language, and they dread it. Their perception is that Ada is a very large, extremely difficult language with an impossible learning curve. They also feel it would be difficult to read, understand, and maintain. The battle reminds me a bit of the Algol vs. FORTRAN battles in the 1970s.