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,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,7bcba1db9ed24fa7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-07 16:06:57 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!194.42.224.136!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "chris.danx" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: Subject: Re: is ada dead? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 00:03:04 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.253.13.78 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 994546907 62.253.13.78 (Sun, 08 Jul 2001 00:01:47 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2001 00:01:47 BST Organization: ntlworld News Service Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:9619 Date: 2001-07-08T00:03:04+01:00 List-Id: "tyler spivey" wrote in message news:ko517.630989$166.13106618@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com... > > is ada dead? No. > is it only used in department of defense? No. > is it easy/hard to learn? Easy. Get John English's book "Ada 95: the craft of object-orientated design". It's the best book for someone wanting to learn Ada imo (doesn't matter whether you know another language, or a complete beginner, it's the business). Norman H. Cohens book (2nd edition) is a good follow on. > will it die soon? No. Ada 95 is used and taught in at least the first three years at Glasgow Uni. When we started they told us the reason they teach it is because it a) promotes good software design b) allows rapid development due, in part, to the large number of compile time checks c) makes it easier to maintain software All seem to be true, my development time for apps has been reduced significantly, and I do find it easier to fix broken code than with Pascal and C, (it has never been due to dubious statements (like casts and so on) which were major sources of irritation in C). There has been a lot of discussion about Ada's popularity, with most ppl agreeing Ada doesn't have the slice of the pie it deserves. However, Adas popularity is growing but I think it's being hindered by the DoD connection. When I went to see the Uni, I asked the CS recruitment officer which programming language they taught and she told me Ada. She then said "it's used by the United States DoD" or words to those effect. This made me question it's relevance to me. I thought that the language would have capabilities unrelated to the projects I work on. I couldn't have been more wrong. It would have been better if she'd have said something like "parts of projects like AdaOS or seti@home have been written in it", but that was two years ago. Maybe this is just me. Chris