Re: Embedded Keynote Speaker Mentions Ada

[Cesar Rabak <crabak@acm.org>]

Tom escreveu:
> Cesar Rabak <crabak@acm.org> wrote in message news:<414EE3A0.9080106@acm.org>...
> 
>>stephane richard escreveu:
>> > "Cesar Rabak" <crabak@acm.org> wrote in message
>>[snipped]
>>
>>Second, academia (the three amigos on UML, for example) abandoned the
>>use of Ada in favor of C++ bringing a perceived vision of the "way to
>>go" for less technically oriented people. Now, let me ask you: if you go
>>to a newstand where fine IT magazines are sold what are the odds a
>>manager sees CUJ or VisualBasic or perhaps a .Net mag, and what are the
>>chances Ada is ever mentioned? And to finally blow the wollf dead most
>>of the 'Research' and 'Advisory' firms when mention Ada send the message
>>it is a 'niche' language or an 'ageing' technology not to be considered
>>for new developements. . .
>>
> 
> Where do you think that they might be getting that idea? 

For academia, I sincerely don't know, as the 'market forces' are 
somewhat different.

For commercial software, I think the major players are more interested 
in selling their propriatary languages, C++ being IMHO an exception, 
perhaps to fade away with the advent of C#.

> When I was
> doing a quick search for information on Ada I put "Ada compilers" in
> for the search term on google. I found a fair number of the most
> popular web sites were not updated in the last several years. It does

I've done the same research and unfortunately you are right. Also, a 
coleague of mine call my attention on the existance of a sort of 
guideline for writing open source where the language of choice is C (I'm 
looking for it, if I find something more exact, I post a pointer here).

> not distill a lot of confidence in a computer language when the so
> called enthusiasts can't even keep their web sites up to date.  If
> this was not bad enough one of the Windows compiler distributors did
> not even mention WindowsXP. The last operating system that they say
> works with their compiler is Win95.  Come on, if the enthusiasts can't
> stay up to date then what chance is there of convincing someone new to
> Ada that it is not 'ageing' technology.

I see.

--
Cesar Rabak