TEAM-ADA Archives

Team Ada: Ada Programming Language Advocacy

TEAM-ADA@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
James Squire <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
James Squire <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:16:21 -0600
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (53 lines)
Stanley Allen <[log in to unmask]> 02/05/98 09:48pm wrote:

>Is there even a way to gauge how many current Ada developers there are
>out there and their salary ranges?  I know many Ada developers who
>abandon the language because they don't believe they can make a career
>of it.  It takes considerable persuasion on my part to get them to even
>consider that this might not be the case.  And these are generally
>people who enjoy the language itself.  (Naturally, I make a point of
>telling them about the people who have left my office for 6-figure
>consulting jobs doing commercial Ada development.)

If this is truly a false myth, then somebody has to do a big selling
job, because people out here in industry believe it.  I just talked to
someone a week ago who is involved in an Ada project on Solaris that is
moving to a PC environment and doing a study to determine whether they
should switch to C++ or not.  He told me that he thinks that Ada is
clearly the best language, but feels they should switch to C++ because
there aren't enough Ada programmers available (they have a bit of a
turnaround).

I said that I didn't understand why anyone would turn down a job just
because the language was Ada, because I learned Ada on the job in a
week.  Granted I wasn't great in it right away, but any CS major or
experienced software engineer should be able to learn Ada without too
much trouble, especially if you are familiar with C++, Pascal, even C.

I can understand people thinking that C++ is the way to go, but all I
see there is being open to C++ jobs.  Why does that mean saying "no" to
an Ada job?  If the *job* is with a good company and the project is a
good one, why should anyone turn that down simply because they would be
programming in Ada, and "as everyone knows, C++ is where it's at!"?????

IMO, this "I can't make a career in Ada" excuse really means "I am
personally prejudiced against Ada because it *makes* me use good
programming practice, aned *that's* no fun.  If I *want* to use good
programming practice, *that's* different."

I have been embarrassed for my profession for a couple of years now, and
I have not yet found a reason to change that to pride.
---
James Squire             Send my Spam to mailto:[log in to unmask]
MDA^H^H^HBoeing St. Louis                          http://www.boeing.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Novell, is it too much to ask that when I log out of NetWare, it
should ACTUALLY record that I've logged out, so that it doesn't have to
scramble around the house laboriously when I try to log back in, forcing
me to ring the door bell 20 times??????
Opinions expressed here are my own and NOT my company's
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are already, as you so quaintly put it, going straight to hell. We
 cannot escape what's coming."
        -- G'Kar (to Garibaldi), "Comes the Inquisitor"

ATOM RSS1 RSS2