Re: Defending Greg

Re: Defending Greg

[news!news.world.net!connected.com!mvb.saic.com!dayton.saic.com!data.aar.w]

Actually, while i get very tired of Gregs constant harping,
he does have a good point from time to time.  He hurts his
buisness, in my opinion, a great deal by his posts however.
i know that when his posts devolve into rants (especially
when he identifies with ted holden) make me very learly of
using his reuse service.  But I can take all that much better
than i take his insults to all people who work on govt 
contracts.  I work for my living, i do not "wallow at the
gov't trough"!  If he wants to post fine, but keep such
attacks to himself!! 


My opinions, by the by are mine, and do not reflect my employer
or anyone else.

Re: Defending Greg

[news.intercon.com!psinntp!shellgate!camo!rgh]

kanderso@liege.ICS.UCI.EDU (Kenneth Anderson) writes:

>In comp.lang.ada Richard Hash writes:
>>srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
>>> [[the same old stuff, removed for brevities sake]]
>> [ blah, blah, Greg works too hard, blah, blah]
>
> [...]
>If you don't like Greg's posts then put his name in your kill file and
>never be bothered again. Not liking what someone says (no matter how
>many times they say it) doesn't give you the right to censor/belittle him
>with a sarcastic post.
>
>Ken Anderson - U.C. Irvine

I'm not trying to censor Mr. Aharonian (I think he does get quite
repetitious as times, but that's his right), he can flag away at readers
of this group forever, and that's fine with me. I know how kill files
work, and I don't like to us them. There have been plenty of times I've
*enjoyed* his posts - some contain good points to ponder. Others sound
more like frustration outlets (to me).

What I'm curious about is: why *here*? What on earth is the motivational
reason for such persistent efforts, when, to date, the payback has been
pretty near nothing for him? What "special" thing about this newsgroup
warrants his long-term and unflagging persistence? Is it possible this is
the wrong place for maximum payback? It just seems like a tremendous time
and energy expense, with poor results, IMO...

I must admit, in all the Ada conferences I've been to, and all the Ada
literature I've read (since '86), I cannot recall having heard thing one
about his companies reuse service/product/whatever. Only in the context
of this newgroups have I heard about it, so he has accomplished that ...

--
Richard G. Hash
Shell Bellaire Research Center, Houston TX
email: rgh@shell.com    ph: (713) 245-7311

Re: Defending Greg

[Gregory Aharonian]

>From: James Hopper <Hopper@dayton.saic.com>
>Organization: SAIC
>
>I know that when his posts devolve into rants (especially
>when he identifies with ted holden) make me very learly of
>using his reuse service.  But I can take all that much better

James,
	You make an idle promise.  In the last three years, I have
been approached four times by people from SAIC around the country
asking for my help in locating reusable Ada packages for their
projects.  Each time, after some personal expense in assembling
the information, I was told that SAIC didn't want to spend the
money for the charges I would have to incur in supplying the reusable
Ada code.  I finally contacted a friend who is a secior researcher
at one of your California facilities who told me, like that of most
other Defense contractors, that use of consultants at any cost and
even where there was a clear cost benefit, was frowned upon by
SAIC management.  It was his suggestion to ignore anyone contacting
me from SAIC becuase in the end, there would be no business.

So I suppose I might change my style if it would lead to business,
but my experiences being a nice guy lost me a ton of money pursuing
dead-end opportunities with companies like SAIC.

With regards to troughing, not knowing you, I'll give you the benefit
of the doubt and assume you are a fine, upstanding, government
contractor.  But unlike you, there are many others who are "wallowing
at the government trough", which is inexcusable behavior of waste
of taxpayers dollars.

And if you can find an example of one of my accusations that is false
about wasteful and inefficient Ada policies and activities of government
employees, , let me and others know about it.   Put up or shut up.


-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Defending Greg

[agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!network.ucsd.edu!mvb.saic.com!dayton.saic.com!data.a]

Greg,.

I hire consultants from time to time to help me on my projects,
i have never ever been told that upper managment frowns on it.
what is important to note about SAIC is that it is an
entrepenurial company where most of the divisions etc are run
in many ways like a collection of small buisnesses.  there
are corporate guidance and some refereeing, but we in dayton
for instance have considerable freedom, and i guarantee that
we pay no attention to the kind of guidance you accuse saic of
providing its offices.  I am sorry that you were unsuccessfull
in working with saic, but in saic it is hardly corporate policy
that is the problem.  I am not suggesting you be mr goody two
shoes, but you might consider moderating the level of some of
your comments.  Expressions of frustration help nothing, they
are simply ignored, even if they do make you feel better in the
long run they hurt your cause far more than they help!  Insulting
people who work on defense projects and demanding proof from each of us
that we don't rip the gov't off simply make you seem yet another
emotional flammer.  

Yes there is considerable waste in gov't and the Ada sw world 
is hardly an exception.  But in my experience the problem with
cost overruns lies more in the requirements domain than in the
implementation domain.  I co-authored a 30 hour internal course
for SAIC on SW requirements and i can tell you that the feedback
we have gotten from around the company while teaching it agrees
with this whole heartedly.  Most projects founder on inadequate/
incomplete/impossible requirements, not on implementation problems
like which language you use.  Ada does help in providing a
consistent framework to build upon, but language is in my
opionion a second order effect, and until we get the main drivers
of cost overruns under control worrying about ada mandate
inefficencies is a waste of valuable time. The problem is not
greedy unscrupulous people (or at least not most of it) its people
who are working hard to implement a system on a foundation built
on quicksand! 

However, if you do want to talk second order effects i will defend
the mandate as one who predates it. I can well remember learning
one new assembly or HOL after another for each project and i got to
tell you that was a waste!  Now at least i can concentrate on gettting
better each time, instead of learning yet another language!

I guess in summary, i would like to ask you to think about 
limiting your discussions to facts and stop the personal attacks
on those of us who work in the defense industry.  For every
individual you can point to who is "Wallowing at the trough" i can
point at 10 who are working very hard at what they do!  I know our
staff works very hard, and even when we have cost plus contracts (which
is mostly) we work long hours of uncompensated overtime to get our
work done on time and budget!

   jim

Re: Defending Greg

[Gregory Aharonian]

    I have never said everyone government employee is ripping off the
taxpayer.  In fact, if you though about my directory of all of the
government's software, you would realize that I recognize that the
vast majority of government employees do their job as well as can be
done under current conditions.  Why else would I try collecting all of
their software, and try to help other people use these programs.

    At the same, all of these good people allow the waste to go on,
at the expense of many people.  Going to Congress, etc to address these
problems is not the answer.  These are internal problems for which there
are no internal channels to correct.  If they can't be solved within
the Ada community, then the Ada community does not deserve to be able
to spend taxpayer dollars.  We should be self-policing, not self-serving.

   Case in point.  The DoD is now requiring contractors to submit lists
of reusable software in their RFP bids.  Yet the word through the
grapevine is that contractors are submitting lists of little relevance
because they know that no project managers in the DoD can evaluate how
useful or complete such lists are.  Yet for all of this grapevine talk,
nothing is being done publicly or through channels, allwoing new forms
of waste to occur.  This tolerance is more obnoxious than my obviously
childish insults.  But at least I am obvious, while others get plaques.
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Defending Greg

[cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!network.ucsd.edu!mvb.sa]

Eric,

there are a variety of life cycle models used in software development
the method you describe is called the waterfall method, and is
in my opinion usually exactly as you ahve stated a big waste.
however this lifecycle method has nothing to do with ada and
predates ada besides.  i used this methodology on projects using
FORTRAN and assembly 10 years ago, so please do not blame this
on Ada.  The course i coauthored presents a number of life cycle
models including a spiral, evolutionary, and prototype models that
fit your design a little code a little paradigm.  in fact the
OO methodologies fit this life cycle very well.  in a project
i did last summer we build a device to simulate the B-1b Offensive
avionics as a trainer for the maintenance crews who load the
nuclear weapons on the B-1b.  it used exactly your model.  i 
did a object oriented requirements analysis using Coade-Yourdan
tequniques, passed off the object specified as they were completed
to the design team who did the design of the appropriate sections
and passed them on the the implementation people. the analysis
and design finished only slightly before the integration tests
got started.  it worked very well for us, and produced a product
that the customer is very happy with.  It also did it at a low
cost and on schedule ( which was very tight).  the point is
don't blame the language for the sins of the program management
team!   jim

Re: Defending Greg

[cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!do]

Greg,
if you were not accusing all of us of ripping off the govt you
sure make a good imitation of it!  Just because you belive ada
mandate is bad does not mean those of us supporting it are
evil people who are taking our money and keeping our mouths shut!
I for one belive in what i am doing, and my job has nothing to
do with it.  I also program Macintosh software and could quit my
job anything if i wanted to take some other offers i get from
the commercial world regularly.  I happen to belive in what
i am doing, and i take your attacks somewhat personally.  Judging
from the private mail i have received in response to these posts
so do a lot of other people!  jim

>In article <SRCTRAN.93Jun18180953@world.std.com> Gregory Aharonian,
srctran@world.std.com writes:
>   Case in point.  The DoD is now requiring contractors to submit lists
>of reusable software in their RFP bids.  Yet the word through the
>grapevine is that contractors are submitting lists of little relevance
>because they know that no project managers in the DoD can evaluate how
>useful or complete such lists are.  Yet for all of this grapevine talk,
>nothing is being done publicly or through channels, allwoing new forms
>of waste to occur.  This tolerance is more obnoxious than my obviously
>childish insults.  But at least I am obvious, while others get plaques.

Typically you attribute bad faith to this.  let me tell you if it is 
happening, and yes i do belive some companys are not as literate in this
as the should be, i do not belive its done with any intent to deceive.
i know a lot of companies are simply not aware of whats out on the net.
i know you saw this requirement as a direct mandate from god that we
should all go out and hire you, but you have to do your own marketing.
i especially don't like your post were you alternaltly insult us by
saying "theres no room at the trough for little greg" and ask us
to buy your product by giving your phone number.  I suspect that 
you might look to your attitude as more of a problem than anyones
attempt to bamboozle the gov't!

  jim

Re: Defending Greg

[cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.]

wellerd@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (David Weller) writes:
|> [...]  Ada in no way mandates top-down design.  To the contrary, I've
|> found that it is MUCH easier to do built-a-little, test-a-little in
|> Ada than it is in C (and a little easier than C++).  Your mileage
|> may vary -- apparently it has :-)
And which features of Ada make it easier to build-a-little, test-a-little?
(as described in this sample):
A certain application requires some data among many other requirements.  The
developer writes some code to obtain data the simplest way and print it out. 
The developer then spruces up the design by generalizing the SW architecture,
improving fault tolerance, the variety of data handled, adding data analysis,
adding better displays, etc.  At each point the developer makes some changes
and tests them.  The developer gets SW in the customers' hands within days and
allows them to refine their requirements.
|> 
|> >As program requirements change, designs have to change and program
|> >requirements change when you get the product out in the field.  Ada
|> >supporters (especially those who have exaggerated its benefits) maintain
|> >that development costs increase the further you get into the
|> >implementation.  Believing this fallacy, they design and design while
|> >the real world waits and waits for the results so they can tell them
|> >it's all wrong and they should start over.
|> 
|> Yup.  Sounds like you've got some sour grapes from a project that followed
|> a rigid waterfall process.  I could go into a discussion about controlling
|> requirements, prototyping design, formalizing processes, but such concepts
|> usually go over the heads of many C programmers, so I'll not bother. :-)
Yes, unfortunately all I seem to know is how to produce as good a product as
possible as quickly as possible :)  But seriously, please direct me to some
resources so perhaps I can formalize what I infer from my experience.
|> >
|> >The waste I see every day is top-down designers in long meetings
|> >producing designs which are worthless in the long run due to
|> >inadequate, incomplete, and impossible requirements.
|> >
|> 
|> Well, don't just sit there!  Roll up your sleeves and do something about
|> it!  You have two choices otherwise: Leave your job or shut up.
Good advice, my sleeves are rolled up!
|> 
|> I just hate it when people confuse bad project management for a language's
|> shortcomings.  Ada sure has been the scapegoat of the 80's & 90's.  I
|> agree with Greg about some of the outlandish mismanagement of people who
|> are supposed to be promoting things associated with Ada, but Ada itself
|> is a very usable, well-designed language (even WITHOUT Ada 9X!).
|>
I think Ada deserves what it got, because in many cases the same people who
promoted top-down design also promoted Ada as a vehicle for it, i.e., Ada was a
language in which system designers could write pseudocode which was exactly the
same as deployed code.  This feature is, at best, irrelevant in the bottom-up
approach I described above.  Additionally, Ada proponents still promote some
top-down concepts as requirements-based reuse, formal specification, etc.  Why
do these people still exist?

Eric.  (still my views, but edging a little towards the establishment).

Re: Defending Greg

[cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsserver.]

alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:

| In article <204jfg$lar@europa.eng.gtefsd.com> eric@capella.tsc.gtefsd.com
|  (Eric Peterson) writes:

>> I think Ada deserves what it got, because in many cases the same people who
>> promoted top-down design also promoted Ada as a vehicle for it

| I remember many (if not most) Ada proponents being horrified by
| top down design and 2167 - and certainly most Ada evangalists were promoting
| several methods - with OO design and incremental development near the
| top favorite and top down and waterfall methods getting much disdain. 
| This was around 1985.

Nothing but confirmation from me on this point. In late 1984/early 1985,
the group I was with was learning and evaluating Ada for use in real-time
flight simulation. Simultaneously, we were receiving training in the
still relatively new area of structured analysis/structured design for
real-time applications. It was obvious then that the two paradigms were
not wholly compatible.

Grady's brown book was hot off the press, and I remember quite well
trying to scale up his leaf-counting example to simulators. So right
from the start, the Ada community embraced object-orientation as a
viable design strategy.

The logic is straightforward. Look at each design methodology and ask
"Where do packages fit in?". Not to speak for Grady Booch, but this is
essentially what he did. The answer lay in the burgeoning realm of
object-oriented programming languages, particularly Smalltalk. By the
way, I don't believe that "OOP" was yet a buzz-cronym.

I hate to say it, guys, but the diversity of languages and paradigms has
always been a Good Thing. Delete any members of the set {OO, SA/SD, Ada,
C, C++, LISP Flavors, FORTRAN, Smalltalk, ...} and none of the others in
the set remain the same. Frankly, I'm having trouble seeing the
difference in how you design for Ada vs. C++. I've done both, and the
same basic OO approach has suited me just fine.


-- 
Mike Berman
University of Maryland, Baltimore County     Fastrak Training, Inc.
berman@umbc.edu                              (301)924-0050
       The views represented in the above post are my own.