Re: The actual quote from the Post AAS article

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1no3fbINN3h7@umbc4.umbc.edu> berman@umbc.edu (Mike Berman) writes:
>
[stuff deleted]

>Out of a several hundred word (~60 column inch) article, Ada is mentioned
>directly in one paragraph only:
>
>	"Adding a further level of complexity was the
>	government's insistence that the entire project be done using a
>	new computer language called Ada. The federal government was
>	attempting to control a muddle of incompatible software
>	languages by standardizing, but many programmers had to learn
>	the exotic language from scratch."
>
>"... new ..."? "... exotic ..."?!?
>
[stuff deleted]
>
>The article is pretty straightforward in placing "blame" on all factors
>taken in toto, not representing IBM's failures as failure due to the use
>of Ada. In fact, it appears that the article's author knows little about
>the language (or software engineering, or even programming, for that matter).
>Let's face it, the "exotic" features of the language are the same or
>less exotic than the features found in OOP languages.
>
>Any attempt to assert, based on the information in this article, that Ada
>is the sole reason for failure, or even a major contributing factor, is
>absurd. This project would have failed using any implementation
>language.
>
Thanks for posting this, Mike. In fact, I was going to dig out Monday's
paper and post this paragraph myself, then I bumped into yours. Anyone
who knows anything about the FAA project knows that Ada has little or 
nothing to do with its success or failure. Ted's out there on his own
again.

Europe is rebuilding all its ATC systems in Ada; Ada is now the de facto
standard language for new ATC systems world-wide. People I know who are
close to the FAA project tell me that Europe's ATC problems are on a
much smaller scale than ours - many fewer flights. I wish IBM and FAA
well getting us a system we can use; you can read the Post article for
details of the ups and downs. But don't point the finger at Ada. 

Oh - a word of warning - if you hate Ada, don't fly into Copenhagen.

Cheers all -

Mike Feldman
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Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"The most important thing is to be sincere, 
and once you've learned how to fake that, you've got it made." 
-- old show-business adage
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