On Fri, 18 Jul 1997, (No Name Available) wrote:

> Which brings to mind another question which might be asked:
>
>        Assuming our personnel selection is imperfect, what are the
>         statistics regarding our likelihood of getting competent
>         software engineers if we choose only those experienced
>         in C vs only those experienced in Ada.


A relevant story.  A large company hired 85 new C++ programmers.  13 of
these were graduates of my former university.  These students had used Ada
in about 75% of their course work.  Outside of a survey course in
programming languages, they had NO experience with C or C++.  They learned
C++ on the job.  Within about a year, 12 of these 85 new hires were
promoted.  All 12 came from the "Ada programmer" group.

John

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John W. McCormick                 [log in to unmask]
Computer Science Department       voice  (319) 273-2618
University of Northern Iowa       fax    (319) 273-7123
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