Re: Open comment to Ted Holden

[cis.ohio-state.edu!udecc.engr.udayton.edu!blackbird.afit.af.mil!lonex.rl. af.mil!vanderwerkend@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Vanderwerken)]

In article <SRCTRAN.92Apr9102404@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory 
Aharonian) writes:
>Sam,
[stuff about Ada not being cost effective deleted....]
>A good number of soldiers ordered commercial,
>off-the-shelf GPS recievers with their credit cards during the Gulf War,
>and had no complaints about their operations, especially those whose lives
>were saved.  If commercial, off-the-shelf, less mil-spec equipement passed
>the test of combat, maybe the DoD software standards are as excessive. 
>Greg Aharonian
>Source Translation & Optimization

This thread certainly looks like it will provide lively discussion for this
group...I'd like to throw in my two cents too:

As far as Ada being cost effective--you need to look at the bigger picture.
We don't just _develop_ weapon systems.  We deploy, use, and _maintain_ them.
One of the bigger (and cost effective) advantages of Ada is it ease of 
maintainability.  Instead of giving some contractor one hundred thousand
lines of spegetti code in C, we give them Ada.  Now, I don't tremendous persona
l
experiance saying Ada is better to maintain, but everything I've dealt with
does strongly suggest this is the case.  Just for the record, I'm fairly
certain the maintenance costs of our weapon systems far exceed the development
costs.  This _is_ something to think about.

Using the GPS receiver analogy is somewhat inaccurate (IMHO).  It's paramount
to saying that smoking isn't bad for your health because you have a ninety
year old grandfather who still smokes (while the other ninety percent of
all smokers have already died of smoking related illnesses).  We build our
weapon systems to _survive_ a war time environment.  If the commercial GPS
receivers worked, great, but that performance doesn't guarantee they'll work
under all specified conditions.  

During the Gulf War, we had a four star general come and explain how everyone 
laughed at the Air Force's requirement for a FAX machine which worked in 
seemingly rediculous temperature extremes.  He then explained how those very 
same FAX machines were presently working in the desert under those extreme 
temperature conditions...and working well while other FAX machines (commercial)
had crapped out.

Ada software development is just the beginning of a weapon system's life
cycle.  Ada _may_ be more expensive to program in now, but I suspect it will
get less expensive as more and more companies begin to use it.  It's the
long-term life cycle maintenance where Ada will really pay off.  We're still
maintaining systems built with FORTRAN and assembly code almost twenty years
ago.

---Dan---

-- 
+ Captain Daniel F. Van Der Werken, Jr., USAF |  I do not speak for the Air
+ Rome Laboratory/OCDS                        |  Force, otherwise I'll be
+ Griffiss AFB, NY 13441                      |  in Kansas making big rocks
+ (315) 330-4441/DSN 587-4441                 |  into little rocks!