Re: Open Systems closed to Ada?

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.go]

In <723740056.28422@minster.york.ac.uk> mjl-b@minster.york.ac.uk writes:

>In article <1992Dec4.165905.2316@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (
fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>In <EMERY.92Nov30210601@dr_no.mitre.org> emery@dr_no.mitre.org (David Emery) 
writes:
>>>The U.S. DoD has chosen Ada as a matter of policy.  Its rationale for
>>>its decision is well-known (and you can disagree with it if you wish.)
>>>But there's a big difference between the DoD policy on the use of Ada
>>>and the mantra that I've experienced in the C community.  
>>
>>>Governments are *supposed* to make policy.  What I consider completely
>>>objectionable are the people within a technical community who take on
>>>the role of government/management and make the policy for them.  
>>
>>Would you rather that government/management 'made policy' with no
>>input from the technical community?

>No, I'd rather they form a higher order language group full of people from
>the technical community, review the languages in use to see if there's one
>good enough for what they want, and go on from there.

>Sure I've heard that somewhere before...

Ah, but there's a bit of difference between doing that periodically
and selecting the best tool for the job and going off to design your
own and then 'freezing' the state of the art and never looking again
(or only looking every dozen years or so).

>>Whatever happened to simply using the best tools to get the job done,
>>whatever that job might be?

>What, indeed, happened to that?

Governments started mandating things.  :-)

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.