• If I ignore it it will go away!
• It’s too complex.
• I don’t have time to learn another language.
• We don’t have a compiler.
• We need more tools to use Ada.

From the Script: SLIDE 14 - Common Reasons for NOT Using Ada

Now that we’ve documented the superiority of Ada, we must account for the fact that it is not used more widely. There are a litany of perceived inconveniences and coping strategies:

Ada is still perceived as a language being imposed on programmers by the DOD bureaucracy. Many hope that it is an annoyance that will eventually fade; their point of view is, "If I ignore it long enough, it will go away."

*The truth is that Ada will not go away in the foreseeable future. DOD has a tremendous investment in Ada, and major systems written in Ada will be in use for at least the next 20 years.

Others assume that Ada is complex, unintelligible.

*In fact, Ada is very similar to Pascal. Its basic design was derived from Pascal and has been extended to fully meet DOD requirements.

Still others view Ada as a radical departure from what they already know, a language with a steep learning curve.

*The learning curve for Ada is no greater than for any other complex technology.

And some contend that Ada is an immature, unsupported language, that the compilers and tools are expensive and unavailable.

*This is simply not true. Tools and compilers have been developed and are available. In fact, today there are free Ada 95 compilers.

Ada detractors have an arsenal of off-the-cuff excuses for not using it. However, when all the facts are considered, it becomes apparent that Ada is a mature, supported, learnable language that can efficiently and economically serve your development needs.