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=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9cccf6ef6149fdaa X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: reason67@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Ada Date: 1999/12/23 Message-ID: <83tohh$q2s$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 564201901 References: <38620350.48F8FC08@gecm.com> X-Http-Proxy: NetCache@www-blv-proxy1.boeing.com: Version NetApp Release 3.4D6: Mon Aug 23 16:40:19 PDT 1999-Solaris, 1.0 x21.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 12.13.226.11 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Dec 23 18:10:48 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDreason67 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.05 [en]C-Boeing Kit (Win95; I) Date: 1999-12-23T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <38620350.48F8FC08@gecm.com>, Brijesh wrote: > I am fairly new to Ada programming and have a rather trivial question I > was hoping the group could help answer. > > I understand Ada is a very powerful language but is not used much > outside the defence industry, I was woderign if this is a correct > assumption and if so why is this the case - and if not where else is it > used. In the USA around 1% of comercial software was written in Ada. So, your assumption is correct. I don't think anyone knows the reasons for sure. My personal speculation is economic. Until fairly recently Ada compilers were very expensive compared to C. When you buya Unix platform you got C for free with it. (This is also why FORTRAN was so popular as it was free on old IBM Mainfraims). I do not have a crystal ball, but Ada could pick up. From the recent expansion of Parallel Virtual Machine architectures, I think parallel computing is going to be really big in a few years. The Ada runtime could be modified to support PVM or other methods, so you could easily port code from a 1000 machine cluster to a 5 machine cluster. I do not know if anyone is working on this currently. After the Holidays, I planned on looking at writing a binding to PVM for gnat 3.12 on Linux. If successful I wanted to look into using PVM as the tasking model (instead of pthreads), but I have done almost no research at this time. IF Ada can be successfully merged with this new clusters, then Ada has a real shot at being much bigger in the USA. Esp. if people start writing parallel virtual machine libraries in Ada as well. Unfortunately, if I was just starting out, I would not look into Ada for a long term career in the USA. I think I would look much more heavily into C++. --- Jeffrey Blatt Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.