I think Ada will hang on for a while in the support role, but I do not see
any new starts among my circle of contacts. The last I heard from my JSF
friends was that c++ was replacing Ada (anyone hear any different?). The
very people who mentored me in Ada a decade ago are now doing c++ and Java.

The following reasons Ada's demise are difficult to ignore:

* It is to hard to hire Ada experienced engineers.

* Many people refuse Ada training because they don't see a career path.

* Vendor support is almost non-existent, ACT aside.

* Design and test tools are being supported or being evolved.

* Tool vendors want us to fund their Ada developments, to big $ and risk
burden.

* I just did a quick check on Amazon and there aren't many Ada books out
there by comparison.

Its not right that Ada is being beat up so badly, but when the number of
engineers willing to work in a given language drops below a certain
threshold I think the writing is on the wall. Ada is far superior to C++ and
Java, but unfortunately I have mortgages to pay off.

JTA

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Colbert [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 9:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What's Ada's life expectancy?


Hi Craig

Was my question too obscure?  What I meant was do you think there will
be new software projects using Ada 5, 10, 20 years from now?  Also, do
you think there will be more or fewer Ada compiler and tool suppliers?

Take care,
Ed



-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Carey [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 11:37 PM
To: Ed Colbert
Subject: Millions of lines of code : Re: What's Ada's life expectancy?



Reply

At 02\07\26 16:15 -0700 Friday, Ed Colbert wrote:
 >Hi All,
 >
 >I was asked, "what's Ada's life expectancy?"  I thought I'd get the
 >consensus of this group before I respond.
 >
 >I'd appreciate any data you have to support your position?
 >


The life expectancy ?:

mailto:[log in to unmask]&body=ada-comment

It seems that some of the defects in Ada need to remain even though
they could be removed. However features seem to be easier to add.