> I read through the comments posted at the SlashDot site, and some of the > misinformation was so mind-bogglingly ludicrous that it warranted its own > Douglas Adams' metaphors. I was embarrassed for some of the contributors > that they not just believed, but would actually post, such foolishness. > In spite of this, I was really pleased to see the question "Why not Ada?" being posted on Slashdot. That Ada is on people's radar screens is a Good Thing. I'm not seeing "Why not Haskell?" out there, for instance... (no offense intended to any Haskell fanatics :-) These are good opportunities for the Ada community to rise to the occasion by dispelling mythology and FUD in a gracious way. Here are some guidelines I try to keep in mind -- maybe they will work for others as well: 1) Don't mistake ignorance for stupidity, or either one for malice. The task is to educate. 2) There are people who are able to write in a reasonably articulate and persuasive style about things of which they in fact have no real knowledge. The Internet breeds this type of person, and I know because I have fallen into this trap myself before. A good example is the guy on /. who was parroting the "designed by committee" and "feature creep" mythology. He actually sounds like he might know what he's talking about, if one didn't know any better. Have sympathy for these people, but correct them so they can become propagators of facts instead of fiction. Treating them right may help win them over. Remember, this person likes to be right, so if you give them good evidence they will often change their tune unless they are unusually opinionated. 3) There's way too much paranoia and "fortress mentality" in the Ada community, so make a conscious effort to overcome it. It really doesn't play well to the rest of the world. Someone posted regarding the Embedded Systems Journal on-line poll that "they'll just keep re-running it until they get the answer they want". I just don't understand this type of thinking. ESJ was under no obligation to run the poll in the first place, nor to include Ada in it. They way to really trash Ada would be to deliberately ignore it. ESJ included Ada in their poll, and they were equanimous enough to list the languages in alphabetical order :-). Similarly, I dont't understand the level of contempt that would lead someone to stuff the ballot box. Someone actually thought ESJ was dumb enough not to check for duplicate votes, and that they didn't deserve enough respect not to multiple-vote. As a result team-ada ended up looking like bozos. If we want others to think we have our heads up our u-know-where, all we have to do is justify their beliefs by our actions :-) -- Mark Lundquist Senior Software Engineer Rational Software Development Solutions Business Unit Aloha, OR, USA