Cooked cost-effectiveness

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <921212103914.20203764@OTTAWA.DSEG.TI.COM> PETCHER@OTTAWA.dseg.ti.co
m (What? Me Ada?) writes:
>
>On the life cycle cost controversy:  While, as somebody recently pointed out,
>statistics can be cooked up any way you want them, even a good cook can't
>cook without ingredients.  The typical life cycle of a military system is
>about 20 years, probably to grow a bit as time goes on.  I'm not sure what
>the oldest fielded Ada based system is right now, but it couldn't be over
>four or five years old.  Anybody who attempts to compare life cycle cost can
>only do so based on speculation.
>
Which is exactly why the DoD Ada nay-sayers should quit wasting their time
saying nay, relax, admit they are stuck with the mandate -- which carries
with it a _presumption_ that a safe and standard language will be cost-
effective in the long term -- and get on with the business at hand.
High time for a little good faith and giving it your best shot, IMHO.

For the non-DoD world, those of us who choose Ada have done so with no 
mandate -- we were open-minded enough not to need one.

Mike Feldman