Re: Ichbiah's letter to Anderson: Here it is

[sampson@cod.nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson)]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr27141025@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:

   [Previously, I wrote:]

>>     I'm willing to listen to the argument that failure to promote Ada is
>>short-sighted on the part of Ada vendors, although I don't consider that a
>>settled issue.  However, since the government itself has no right to demand
>>that they spend any of their profits on promoting Ada, I have no idea why
>>Greg has appointed himself to this role.
>
>    The government has the right to demand contractors do whatever is in
>the best interests of the country.  If the contractors doesn't want to
>comply, they can get business elsewhere.  ...

     Wrong.  The government only has the _right_ to demand that contractors
fulfill their contracts.  I certainly hope that the government considers
the best interests of the country, in spite of occasional bits of evidence
to the contrary.  If they decide that promoting Ada in the non-Mandated
world is worthwhile, they can write that into their RFPs (Request for Pro-
posal) and let the contractors factor in the cost when they bid.

>    You can't be that naive to not realize that if someone from the DoD
>called Intermetrics management and "suggested" that they place some Ada
>ads, that Intermetrics would place these ads.

     I'm not so naive and I've seen similar acts by the government.  I
consider them totally unconscionable, not too terribly far removed from a
kickback.  Are you claiming that it's something the government should do as
considered policy?

>    But with the Ada Mandate as a national law, the DoD (which I assume
>supports the Mandate and pushed for it), has to make sure that the
>language is thriving enough to insure a sufficient supply of programmers,
>tools, and advanced software technology compatibility. ...

     For decades the DoD has trained programmers in its arcane languages. 
When the Ada effort began it was a purely DoD project aimed a producing a
purely DoD language, with the implicit understanding that the DoD would
continue to train programmers to use its single new language.  Just because
Ada turned out to be an excellent general purpose software engineering
language doesn't mean that the DoD has suddenly been saddled with a respon-
sibility to promote it on the outside.  A cost/benefit analysis might prove
that for the DoD it is better to ignore the outside world.  (To my knowl-
edge such an analysis has not been done.)  This is not to deny that the
computing community at large might be better served by a wider acceptance
of Ada.  I believe that to be the case.  What's not clear to me is why some
people consider it obvious that the DoD should spend part of its budget
promoting this wider acceptance.

>    Given the Mandate, and the reality of Ada, when all of its contractors
>and compiler vendors drop the ball promoting Ada, its up to the DoD to
>assume the responsibility, especially to demand more from anyone taking
>Ada money.

     Again, who is "taking Ada money"?  The DoD awards contracts and the
contractors try to fulfill them.  If the DoD wants the contractors to do
something, put it into the contract.

                                   Charlie