Re: Why don't large companies use Ada?

David Weller (dweller_at_Starbase.NeoSoft.COM) wrote:
: <Am I the only person that thinks the newsgroup list is excessively
: cross-posted?>
I don't know which of the newsgroups you wrote this from, but the answer is definitely YES. This article did not merit such a broad cross-posting. In fact, the only subject large enough to merit that will probably be the day that the world government announces that all programming languages except SNOBOL are to be banned forever.

: I disagree here. For two reasons: 1) Ada developers aren't "rare",
: just less visible. Unfortunately, I know LOTS of ex-Ada people stuck
: in C++ jobs that would jump to Ada again if they could. 2) It's "C"
: developers that are "all over the place". There is, from my personal
: observation, a dearth of C++ developers. Many companies are hiring C
: programmers now and training them in C++. I agree with Bill Beckwith
: here -- it takes less time to create a productive Ada developer than
: it does to create a productive C++ developer, even if they only have
: a C background.
There are not a lot of Ada developers. There are not a lot of developers working with OO languages, period. It will take time for the educational systems of the world to catch up. In the meantime I think it is absolutely true that it takes less time to "create" a productive Ada developer, simply because of Ada's high level of abstraction. Even when I am working in C++, I use Ada as pseudo-code because it's easier to write it that way.

: >Therefore, most of the time, my customers want the product in C or
: >C++. The price of software is not how much it costs to develop it, but how
: >much it costs to maintain it. If I can't find a developer who knows the
: >language it was developed in, then I chose the wrong language no matter how
: >cheap the initial development was. Oh, and personally I'd choose smalltalk
This is rich. Customers want the product in an executable form, and don't have the slightest idea with C or C++ even looks like. Customers also want maintainability, even if they don't know it when the project starts off.

: Boy, I"m confused. You mean to tell me that it's LESS expensive to
: use a langauge that has been empirically proven to be less reliable,
: because it's cheaper to find/train a developer in that language? Why
: not get a language that provides more maintainable code, thus
: requiring less people (which is the REAL cost factor).
The company I work for is going through major hassles (have been for a long time) over all of the software systems we are using. The main issue is that no update ever fixes all the old bugs, and every update adds new bugs. A lot of the software we use has to function in real time, such as cash registers. I think that the inherent confirmability of Ada would have eliminated a lot of the recurring and new bugs. I am certain that a more competent C developer would not have so many problems, but it would be easier to deliver the goods using Ada.

: Ada -- Very Cool. Doesn't Suck. || father's Ada
And all those years I was stuck with C, it was right there under my nose.

Dan
rtfm_at_cyberspace.com

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