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From: "Bill Nielsen" <bnielsen@logicon.com>
Subject: Re: Once again, Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation
Date: 1996/10/09
Message-ID: <01bbb57f$7fb59020$72663389@billn.logicon.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 188051977
references: <DyxtAA.Ez5@world.std.com>
organization: Logicon Inc.
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-10-09T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>




Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com> wrote in article
<DyxtAA.Ez5@world.std.com>...
<snip> 
>     Indeed the most honest admission of DoD attitudes towards programming
> languages comes from one of the DARPA projects:
> 
> 	DARPA SB971-008
> 	Tools for safe, efficient mobile code in heterogenous network
>             environments
>         "LANGUAGES OF INTEREST ARE NOT LIMITED TO JAVA, BUT MAY
>          INCLUDE OTHER FAMILIAR LANGUAGES SUCH AS C, C++ AND ML."
> 
<snip>
 
> Greg Aharonian
> Source Translation & Optimization
> 
After following up on a post I made last week ("Future of the Ada mandate")
talking to  program managers involved DoD procurements, one thing is clear:
The Ada mandate (which is written into law) is being widely ignored. In
most cases, waivers are not even sought. This includes not just R&D
software, but fieldable operational software that supports military
missions for which Ada is expressly designed. 

Whenever I have heard a justification, it is that extensive COTS software
will be employed in a system and COTS products are not designed to support
Ada.

Questions:
Are the conditions that led to the creation of Ada no longer valid or are
they just as valid today with new languages and variants popping up every
few months?
Is it time to overhaul the Ada mandate and face reality? 
Does the Ada mandate conflict with the desire of DoD to use best commercial
practice?

Bill Nielsen
bnielsen@logicon.com
The above represents my own and not my company's opinion.