Re: Open comment to Ted Holden

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!nic!jonesm@ucbvax.Berkel ey.EDU (Matthew Jones)]

And for my 2 cents.

I think that comparing carrying commercial GPS equipment into the desert
to mil equipment is really not fair. First as someone already pointed out
the war only lasted a few days and second GPS is a really simple device
and is of a really small form factor. I hardly think this is a good test
for camparing commercial to mil equipment. 

Defense contractors take a lot of criticism for producing expensive 
bug riddled products. Many people ask why doesn't mil equipment 
work as well as commercial stuff. I think that people should consider
that Microsoft for example had 50,000 people beta test Windows 3.1
and the people are still having problems with it. Does
the defense department have 50,000 people to test their equipment?
For free? Does the Dod have a Dr. Dobbs Journal or many of the 
equivalents to help them work over technical issues. 
That is paid for by the user community?
If a Word processor has a FATAL bug it in that probably means that
it might destroy some data on your hard disk. A FATAL error in 
a mil system may mean that many people will die. Are these two really
comparable?

To me that largest problem with Ada is that it doesn't have a large
customer base. So the Ada Compiler/development systems are not checked
out as well as its commerial counterparts. How many beta test sites
are there for the average C compiler? How many for Ada? And keep in mind
that Ada is a lot more complicated than C. Borland has sold hundreds
of thousands of their C (and C++) compilers, how many has Meredian
or Alsys sold for the PC?

End of 2 cents.

Matthew Jones
jonesm@cerf.net