Hello, All,

This is my first posting to this list, although I have been lurking for

Dean Esposito said:

will limit your career choices in the future

the UK - http://www.jobserve.com) today lists only 117 jobs for Ada
as 100K.

I have used Ada for most of the last 15 years (writing Ada compilers &
have to use Microsoft's Visual C++ Developer Studio (and even COBOL!!!!
hideous over-complexity of all the baggage that surrounds it, compared
to the simple elegance of Ada.

I have also been learning Java, since I think that it is the only real
career choice for me now; and though it is considerably better than C++,
I find it extremely depressing that the language's designers have thrown
away virtually everything that has been so painfully learned over the
past decades of language design evolution about the value of strong

What is even more depressing is the blank looks that I receive from my
new colleagues (all C++ / Microsoft people) when I extoll the virtues of
Ada - the bugs that I have to track down and fix now just couldn't occur
in Ada, but they simply can't see anything wrong with C++!  I recently
tried to explain to one of them how Ada's distinction between package
specification and body makes it an ideal choice for transparently
distributing the code of an application across client and server by
means of an RPC mechanism (something we need for our products), only to
your interface in IDL, then generate a special API which you then have
to call.

apart from some defence-related work, Ada's market penetration is
minute, and seems to be dwindling all the time.

Hope this hasn't depressed you too much!

         Richard Stuckey