Re: Ada is not a failure.

[agate!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com!csn!news.usafa.af.mil!kirk!cwara ck@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Chris Warack <agate!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com]

In article <dt4.743671381@persimmon>, dt4@persimmon.ucsb.edu (David E. Goggin) 
writes:
|> tne@world.std.com (Thomas N Erickson) writes:
|> 
|> >Nevertheless, it should not be considered a failure.  It is one of the few
|> >programming languages GROWING in use and there are several very successful
|> >applications (both military and civilian).
|> 
|> A nitpick here:  I think that even the most obscure languages are growing --
|> if language X had 10 people who knew it last year and 20 that know it
|> this year then its growing.  The languages that are not growing are
|> probably Fortran and Cobol -- even these are doubtful (my alma mater is
|> still cranking out engineers having taken the required Fortran course.)
|> 
|> *dt*

Well, at HOPL2 Guy Steele indicated that Lisp was on the decline.  I also
remember Jean Sammet saying something to the effect that only a fraction of
the languages that have existed are being used at all...  Which languages
fit X besides Ada, C++, and Smalltalk.  Oberon?

I can think of several others on the decline besides Fortran and Cobol --
Jovial, CMS-2, Atlas ...

-- 
Christopher A. Warack, Capt, USAF
Computer Science Department, US Air Force Academy

cwarack@kirk.usafa.af.mil                (719) 472-2401