Language Niches (long)

[Tim Rowe]

In article <mailman.996449995.2167.python-list at python.org>, 
robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk (Robin Becker) wrote:

> In message <HBEJKOJGHBOIBHLHPMKGGEEPDKAA.rcalco at cortechs.com>, Bob Calco
> <rcalco at cortechs.com> writes
> 
> I hesitated to mention ADA as it is (so far as I'm aware) the only
> computer programming language to have won a standardized selection
> process. It has been an utter failure outside the DOD despite the fact
> that it does indeed have a dedicated following.

It has a significant following outside the DoD, in the mission-critical 
(especially safety-critical) software community. There are two main issues 
with Ada, one cultural, one technical. The cultural one is that it's a 
Bondage and Discipline language that can be clean and efficient to work 
with but most certainly is not /fun/. That means that a lot of programmers 
will fight by fair means or foul to replace it with a fun language. The 
technical issue is that, in the classic quote (CAR Hoare?), Inside Ada 
there's a really neat little language trying to get out [1]. The language 
is hugely bloated, and critical applications use formally defined safe 
subsets.

[1] Someone else once commented "And the really neat language is actually 
Modula II" :-)