sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler) (09/22/88)
I just completed a conversation with someone who made
some statements that surprised me a little. Not knowing
much about this area, I'm appealing to you folks for
some verification. (I'd rather not hear too many opinions
on this stuff - I have enough of my own.)
1. The DoD is now turning down bids by companies solely
because they are not specifying Ada as the programming
language. (The particular example used was one
involving a bid by a division of Honeywell.)
2. NASA, DoD, NBS (National Bureau of Standards) are all
requiring Ada now (along with several other government
agencies that I didn't take note of).
3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage.
(I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.)
4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science
program are pretty much assured of obtaining several
million dollars of grant support to do so, and that
this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program
that has done so.
Well, what is the degree of truth in these statement?
I'm surprised by 3 because I haven't seen all that many
job ads requesting Ada, both on the Net and in magazines
such as Computer World.
There were other, similar, comments made, but I think the
above is enough for you to get the drift.
Please email me if possible, just to keep the flame wars
down some.
--
Steve Wampler
{....!arizona!naucse!sbw}dave@sun.soe (Dave Goldblatt) (09/22/88)
From article <917@naucse.UUCP>, by sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler): > 1. The DoD is now turning down bids by companies solely > because they are not specifying Ada as the programming > language. (The particular example used was one > involving a bid by a division of Honeywell.) This is true. For almost all _new_ DoD contracts (with VERY limited exceptions), all software must be written in Ada using a DoD-approved Ada compiler. For the company I worked for this past summer, we had to convert all of our Pascal source to Ada. 'Course, since Ada doesn't support Curses internally, we had to use the good ol' PRAGMA directive a few times.. :-) Actually, one thought was to write everything in C, and have the Ada program call the C code. Unfortunately, I don't think DoD would be too appreciative. > 2. NASA, DoD, NBS (National Bureau of Standards) are all > requiring Ada now (along with several other government > agencies that I didn't take note of). From what I understand, NASA "encourages" software to be written in Ada, but it is NOT required. Reason: Most Ada compilers simply produce code which is too big and/or too slow. Example: On 3 different Unix compilers, a "Hello, world" program produced code ranging in size of 89.9K to 107K. (not meant as a scientific example, so no flames please! :-) > 3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage. > (I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.) I don't know if it's THAT large, but in my experience, there is most certainly a shortage. In fact, is you have "Ada" listed on your resume, you have very good odds of getting a job with a defense contractor.. > 4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science > program are pretty much assured of obtaining several > million dollars of grant support to do so, and that > this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program > that has done so. This I haven't heard. Then again, I can't think of any Ada-based computer science programs off the top of my head either. As an interesting note: a relative of mine went to a seminar given by one of the members of the Ada design committee. He opened with this: "Ada was designed to be used for embedded systems software. Of course, you _can't_ use it for that, but..." :-) Flames to /dev/null -- I actually started getting used to the language! :-) (did anyone know that GNU Emacs has an Ada mode?) -dg- -- Internet: dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu or: dave@clutx.clarkson.edu BITNET: dave@CLUTX.Bitnet uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!dave Matrix: Dave Goldblatt @ 1:260/360 ICBM: Why do you want to know? :-)
fred@cs.utexas.edu (Fred Hosch) (09/22/88)
In article <917@naucse.UUCP>, sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler) writes: > 4. Universities that adopt an Ada-based computer science > program are pretty much assured of obtaining several > million dollars of grant support to do so, and that > this has happened to every (most? many? some?) program > that has done so. The University of New Orleans has had an Ada-based cs program since about '84, but they must be hiding their millions. Fred Hosch fred@cs.utexas.edu
cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) (09/22/88)
In the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, NASA and DOD have not required ADA, but have been notably impressed with those folks who DO use it. In contrast, a co-worker just finished a project with Goddard that had all software written in QuickBASIC! Has anyone seen a PD/Shareware/Cheap ADA compiler for learning purposes? As any commercial package must be DOD approved or whatever, they tend to be *pricey*, but a learning version (a la) TurboADA or QuickADA) could be fairly cheap and cost effective for learning the language. Janus/ADA is $129 but I'm looking even cheaper. -- Charles Lord ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl Usenet Cary, NC cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Bitnet #include <std.disclamers> #include <cutsey.quote>
baur@spp2.UUCP (Steven L. Baur) (09/23/88)
in article <1378@sun.soe>, dave@sun.soe (Dave Goldblatt) says: > Xref: spp2 comp.misc:3752 comp.lang.ada:1154 (Reason why nasa does not always require ada) > Reason: Most Ada compilers simply produce > code which is too big and/or too slow. Example: On 3 different Unix > compilers, a "Hello, world" program produced code ranging in size of > 89.9K to 107K. That is a very fair statement. And, Ada code can run an order of magnitude slower than equivalent "C" code. (No flames, ask for the benchmark sources and results). (From Steven Wampler of Arizona:) >> 3. There is, right now, a 600,000 Ada programmer shortage. >> (I think this is the one that is I find most surprising.) > > I don't know if it's THAT large, but in my experience, there is most > certainly a shortage. If you want a job, apply at TRW with Ada experience on your resume. > > As an interesting note: a relative of mine went to a seminar given by one > of the members of the Ada design committee. He opened with this: > "Ada was designed to be used for embedded systems software. Of course, > you _can't_ use it for that, but..." :-) My favorite is from a lecture from Dr. Ben Brosgol, Vice President of Alsys who said "Ada doesn't support distributed applications very well". Can you pronounce C3I? steve
bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (09/24/88)
I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff. --Blair
cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) (09/24/88)
In article <1039@buengc.BU.EDU>, bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) writes: > I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff. A recent solicitation for a Navy system upgrade specifically stated that they wanted the new system in ADA. May have been to keep GSA happy... -- Charles Lord ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl Usenet Cary, NC cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Bitnet #include <std.disclamers> #include <cutsey.quote>
rgc@raybed2.UUCP (RICK CARLE) (09/26/88)
In article <1039@buengc.BU.EDU>, bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) writes: > I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff. > 1. Navy LCDR George Sullivan, speaking at the ACM SIGAda Summer '88 Conference in Princeton NJ, said the Navy policy changed in 1985 from "standard hardware 1st" to "Ada 1st." (I.e., "Damn the AN/UYKs and full speed ahead!") 2. The Navy has pressed forward with ALS/N, released it to the user community, and continued to improve it (thus solving the Ada AN/UYK problem). 3. Several defense contractors, including Raytheon, are working on important embedded Ada weapon systems for NAVSEA and NAVAIR. Rick Carle, rgc@raybed2.ray.com
rcj@moss.ATT.COM (09/27/88)
In article <1039@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: }I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff. Since I'm working on a Navy project now, I can assure you that, at least for their new Navy-wide-standard signal processor, our EMSP, the rumor is false. Our new hardware will be programmed in Ada. Curtis Jackson -- att!moss!rcj 201-386-6409 "In skydiving, if at first you don't succeed -- that's it!"
ejs@ord.UUCP (e john sebes) (09/27/88)
I also heard a rumor that the Navy isn't psyched about Ada (if you attach any meaning at all to such a broad statement), but it was a couple of years ago. At the time, I was working for a contract software development firm that was starting to market as a product an Ada PDL and document generation package. One of the customers was a large company with a contract from the Navy to develop software to aid in the specification of the configuration of ships (like, the whole boat). It was a large project with dozens of designers working in a one or two year design phase. They were using Ada (augmented by the above-mentioned product) as a design language, but were planning on implementing the design in an old Navy programming language (CSP-2, or somethign like that). The idea was that the Navy didn't want to have to get the contractor to make all scores of their CSP-2 (or whatever) programmers learn Ada, but they wanted the design to be tuned to implementation in Ada, JUST IN CASE things changed over the course of the years, such that the funder had to require this of the contractor. It seemed quite curious at the time, but I have no idea how it turned out. --John
bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) (09/29/88)
From article <1039@buengc.BU.EDU>, by bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton): > I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff. > > --Blair This weeks Aviation Week has a brief blurb about a million dollar Ada purchase by the Navy. A million dolars worth of Ada programming environment which they intended to use to write several million lines of Ada code. A few weeks ago the same magazine had an article giving projections of the number of Ada programmers expected to be working on just DOD projects in 10 years. I don't have the article, looks like the kids or the cats got the to magazine, but the numbers were very big. The rate of growth numbers were shocking. Now who did I loan that old green book to...? Bob P. -- Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland UUCP Address: {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet Alternate: utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet I am solely responsible for what I say.
dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (David Harvey) (10/02/88)
In article <1039@buengc.BU.EDU>, bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) writes: > I heard a rumor that the Navy doesn't want to bother with the stuff. > > --Blair Yes, they want to work with one of the not less than 4 languages they already have and no, not one of them is C. That was why they started the process in the first place. And since they were involved in the selection process of preliminary designs, choice of the winning design team, and final approval of the end product, what chance do they have of weaseling out of it now? For better or worse, they are stuck with it. Only another year of compiler refinement and they will have to start using it in earnest. dharvey@wsccs David A Harvey The only thing you can know for sure Is that you can't know anything for sure.