Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net>]

Markus E L wrote:

> Adam Beneschan wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Aug 31, 7:25 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I used to do a lot of training and consulting for Lockheed and CSC related
>>>to the Aegis project.   Soon after the Paige memo, Lockheed dictated that
>>>the software for Aegis would be written in C++ instead of Ada.  Almost all
>>>training in Ada stopped, and the programmers were given intensive training
>>>in C++.   I told everyone that it was a big mistake, but my advice was of
>>>little interest to those who were already biased toward C++.   The answer
>>>was, "We can find C++ programmers right out of university CS programs,
>>>but no one teaches Ada in CS."
>>
>>Sigh...  My initial reaction to this is that this thinking is just
>>totally wrong-headed, and for reasons having nothing to do with the
>>languages involved.  I frankly wouldn't expect good results from
>>*anyone* who can program in language X because it's what they learned
>>in college but couldn't pick up language Y; to me, I wouldn't trust
>>someone like that to have a real understanding of "software" or
>>"programming", and because of that I wouldn't expect them to write
>>good software no matter how good language X is, even if it were Ada.
>>Ada is not a good enough language to make up for a fundamental lack of
>>software engineering understanding.
>>
>>But I could be way off base.
> 
> 
> No. This was approximately my reaction when I read "can find C++
> programmers right out of university".

But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers 
themselves.  When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C 
programmers were turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't 
pick up Ada, but because they wanted to keep their C skills polished in 
case they found a better position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from 
non-use, and you fall behind the latest standards over time.


> 
> Regards -- Markus
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
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