Re: Ada fairs poorly in CASE market survey

Re: Ada fairs poorly in CASE market survey

[David McAllister]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Jan14232941@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>    The January 1993 issue of Software Magazine has a lengthy article on
>software reusability (pages 86-92).  On page 88 there is a table of the
>results of a survey by Sentry Market Research titled:
>
>	"Development Language Preferences among CASE buyers"
>
>with the following results:
>
>			1991		1992
>
>	Cobol		41%		38%
>	C		18%		16%
>	4GL		15%		13%
>	Other		13%		16%
>	Fortran		5%		4%
>	C++		4%		4%
>	Other OOs	3%		4%
>	Ada		2%		4%
>
>	These results pretty much reflect similar surveys, such as language
>presence at trade shows, language requirements in help wanted ads, and softwar
e
>tools and libraries sold commercially.
>
>	To base this nation's software defense policies on a mandated language,
>when neither the DoD, its contractors or Ada compiler vendors care enough to
>foster interest and demand in the non-mandated world, is criminal, as their
>inactions undermine the ability of the free markets to provide Ada supply to
>meet defense needs. This continuing niche status of Ada will drive up the
>cost of Ada tools and programmers, driving up the costs of developing defense
>software systems.
>
>Greg Aharonian
>Source Translation & Optimization
>-- 
>**************************************************************************
>Greg Aharonian
>Source Translation & Optimiztion
>P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178


--
*SHINDO - the ART of the MIND*

*Fortune for the day*

Re: Ada fairs poorly in CASE market survey

[David McAllister]

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada fairs poorly in CASE market survey
Summary: 
Expires: 
References: <SRCTRAN.93Jan14232941@world.std.com>
Sender: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: comp.lang.ada
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Keywords: 


If you read the caption for this survey, you'd find

"STALWART. A survey of mostly MIS developers shows that Cobol is still 
 the runaway winner, with a 38% share in 1992. That share loses several
 points a year, though, with no clear mop-up entry."

While I agree with some of the sentiments expressed by Mr Aharonian, I
feel that the context of this survey should be noted. I also find it 
interesting that only Ada and 'Other OO's' grew in share.


In article <SRCTRAN.93Jan14232941@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>    The January 1993 issue of Software Magazine has a lengthy article on
>software reusability (pages 86-92).  On page 88 there is a table of the
>results of a survey by Sentry Market Research titled:
>
>	"Development Language Preferences among CASE buyers"
>
>with the following results:
>
>			1991		1992
>
>	Cobol		41%		38%
>	C		18%		16%
>	4GL		15%		13%
>	Other		13%		16%
>	Fortran		5%		4%
>	C++		4%		4%
>	Other OOs	3%		4%
>	Ada		2%		4%
>
>	These results pretty much reflect similar surveys, such as language
>presence at trade shows, language requirements in help wanted ads, and softwar
e
>tools and libraries sold commercially.
>
>	To base this nation's software defense policies on a mandated language,
>when neither the DoD, its contractors or Ada compiler vendors care enough to
>foster interest and demand in the non-mandated world, is criminal, as their
>inactions undermine the ability of the free markets to provide Ada supply to
>meet defense needs. This continuing niche status of Ada will drive up the
>cost of Ada tools and programmers, driving up the costs of developing defense
>software systems.
>
>Greg Aharonian
>Source Translation & Optimization
>-- 
>**************************************************************************
>Greg Aharonian
>Source Translation & Optimiztion
>P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178


*SHINDO - the ART of the MIND*

*Fortune for the day*

Re: Ada fairs poorly in CASE market survey

[Bob Kitzberger]

srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:


>    The January 1993 issue of Software Magazine has a lengthy article on
>software reusability (pages 86-92).  On page 88 there is a table of the
>results of a survey by Sentry Market Research titled:
>
>	"Development Language Preferences among CASE buyers"
>with the following results:
>			1991		1992
>	Cobol		41%		38%
>	C		18%		16%
...
>	C++		4%		4%
>	Ada		2%		4%


Greg, in order to put much stock in this survey's results, we'd need to
know how many people participated, and from whence they came.  I would
expect different results for surveys of Datamation subscribers than I
would for Embedded Systems Programming magazine subscribers...

Also, in this part of the country, the results above hardly reflect the
want ads.  C, C++, and Ada beat out COBOL in these parts, if you track
the want ads.  (By the way, a disturbing trend is that you can now see
want ads that state "no applicants from the defense industry, please."
There's more to the commercial/defense split than language choice.)

	.Bob.
----------------
Bob Kitzberger          VisiCom Laboratories, Inc.
rlk@visicom.com         10052 Mesa Ridge Court, San Diego CA 92121 USA
                        +1 619 457 2111    FAX +1 619 457 0888