Re: In Defense of the Mandate

[agate!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!ub!csn !news.usafa.af.mil!kirk!cwarack@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Chris Warack <agate!howla]

In article <1993Jun4.142757.28992@midway.uchicago.edu>, dave@blackjoke.bsd.uchi
cago.edu (Dave Griffith) writes:
|> In article <C82G4M.DE0@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> willett@cbnewsl.cb.att.com  
|> (david.c.willett) writes:

|> > (on average) easier for an independent programming team to understand and
|> > subsequently enhance than one written in any previous language.  Thus,
|> > it is easier for independent programming teams to create variants of that 
|> > system (J', J'', J'''.....) than it would be if J were written in some old
er
|> > language.  That capability is needed if we have to fight protracted confli
cts 
|> > like World War II, Korea, or VietNam.
|> 
|> Even accepting your claim on the merits of Ada for this requirement, the cha
nce  
|> of a modern war lasting long enough that major program revs would have to be
  
|> shopped out to independent contractors is pretty small.  This would only rea
lly  
|> be likely to occur in a "total war" on the scale of WWII.   

Actually, this happens all the time -- war or no war.  Some software systems I'
ve
worked with are 10 to 20 years old and have changed contractor hands 2, 3, 4 
times.  Pieces are spun off, subcontracted, maintained operationally by militar
y
programmers...  This is the whole basis of the readability vs. writability
tradeoff.  

|> Your WWII analogy can be used to _oppose_ the mandate.  If WWII style ramp u
p  
|> was necessary, the current supply of Ada programmers would be grossly  
|> inadequate.  There would be a fairly sizeable time lag as programmers were  
|> retrained to Ada, and a (temporary) quality lag as they brought their skills
 up  
|> from usable to professional.  With this in mind, the WWII analogy suggests t
hat  
|> defense procurement use the language for which an adequate supply of  
|> programmers can be quickly supplied in case of emergency.   C or Cobol,  
|> probably.

This is a scary thought...  It brings up that old question of what is a
programmer?  Is it someone who translates an explicit design, or someone who
makes the design as well.  In the first case, you're talking mostly syntax --
not such a big hurdle to overcome.  In the second case, I hope they're good
enough that the language doesn't matter as much as good design techniques
matter.  (I'm afraid, however, that that's not true -- the "adequate supply
of programmers" out there are not good large scale designers).

This ties into a favorite saying of mine...  "Using Ada makes a bad design 
obvious, using C doesn't"

-- 
Christopher A. Warack, Capt, USAF
Computer Science Department, US Air Force Academy

cwarack@kirk.usafa.af.mil                (719) 472-2401