Re: Ada source: Where?

[howland.reston.ans.net!ira.uka.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!news.uni-stuttgart. de!ucaa2385@gatech.edu (Peter Hermann)]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr26210610@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>DoD reuse efforts, and the only response is sarcasm.  These people are
>not qualified to operate software reuse centers, as demonstrated by their
>continual inactions).

This statement is not fair.

My personal experience is as follows:
First, I have the impression, that the people work pretty hard.
After a formal paper-mail exchange procedure, I finally got
a personal license to login into the "stars asset" repository.
To my surprise, I received the password in a long-distance
telephone call(!).
When applying telnet, a menu pops up which is of course
prohibitive for a transatlantic dialog.
So I ftp'd that address and this worked fine.
However, I first had to find out the appropriate directories
due to the lack of that information.
Astonishing is, that there are already more than 600 users,
the names of which are sometimes well known in the Ada scene.
Some minor deficiencies can be noted:
-- it is not easy to find out where to search for an overview
   and the appropriate files. E.g., I still did not find out,
   how to get a hierachical summary of topics.
   (Nobody has the time for investigation in a mess of directories).
-- software documentation is sometimes obtainable only 
   by paper mail. Some ftp'able ascii text would often do it.
-- for all software, which is unlimited for worldwide distribution,
   I see no need to prevent anonymous ftp
    as it is e.g. for ajpo.sei.cmu.edu.
-- There is no advertizing, which is crucial.
   In this point, I fully agree with Greg's neverending opinions.

All in all, these people do fine work.

Regards,

Peter Hermann