Re: decline of Ada?

[geert@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl (Geert Bosch)]

JBisaillon (jbisaill@brainiac.com) wrote:
   1) If you are an Ada programmer, you had better pray that you don't
   get downsized.  All that training, years of experience, are virtually
   worthless unless you can find another DoD Contractor
   doing Ada.

In Europe there are many jobs involving Ada (as a tool, not a goal!).
In fact there are many more job openings than qualified people to fill
them.  And there is no "DoD" with a "mandate" in Europe. Some Americans
have such a limited view that they fail to see the language is also
used on a large scale without companies being forced to.

  "Just a few words of wisdom for Ada coders.  There is no place to go.
   If you do not know another language, kiss you butt good bye."

You may have a point. You hopefully can't find a job as "Ada coder".
Coding is a simple job, especially when using Ada. Designing and
specifying the system is the hard part, but you don't need coders for
that.

For a job doing coding and debugging, you'd better use C. For a system
built on schedule and with low maintenance cost you might ditch the C
coder and get a qualified engineer. Of course I understand that this
scenario frightens some people, especially when software quality is
becoming more important and the replacement of coders by designers is
getting more common.

Regards,
  Geert
-- 
E-Mail: geert@sun3.iaf.nl