Rational ADA development environment

Rational ADA development environment

[Sandor Nieuwenhuijs]

Does anybody have information about a software development environment
for ADA, called "Rational" ?

Please send me names, addresses, numbers, or experiences....

-- 
Sandor Nieuwenhuijs             | E-mail:    sani@wmt.uucp
Westmount Technology B.V.       |            ..!uunet!hp4nl!wmt!sani
Poortweg 8, 2612 PA Delft       | Phone:     +31 15 610815
The Netherlands                 | Fax:       +31 15 565701

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[William Thomas Wolfe, 2847]

From sani@wmt.UUCP (Sandor Nieuwenhuijs):
> Does anybody have information about a software development environment
> for ADA, called "Rational" ?

   The Software Engineering Institute has a technical report (July 1988)
   entitled "Evaluation of the Rational Environment" which gives pretty
   thorough coverage.  The code numbers are CMU/SEI-88-TR-15 and 
   ESD-TR-88-16.  Copies can be obtained from:

      National Technical Information Services     
      U.S. Department of Commerce
      Springfield, VA  22161   USA 


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[Loren Rosen]

In article <7861@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:

>   The Software Engineering Institute has a technical report (July 1988)
>   entitled "Evaluation of the Rational Environment" which gives pretty
>   thorough coverage.  The code numbers are CMU/SEI-88-TR-15 and 
>   ESD-TR-88-16.  Copies can be obtained from:
>
>      National Technical Information Services     
>      U.S. Department of Commerce
>      Springfield, VA  22161   USA 
>

If anyone reads this (and by no means do I want to discourage any one from
doing so if you're interested) bear in mind that it's two years old and a bit
out-of-date.


--
     -- Loren Rosen, the token irrationalist at ...
	    Rational, 3320 Scott Blvd. Santa Clara Ca. 95054
            loren@rational.com  uunet!igor!loren

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[Steve Sawyers,212 ERF,,]

From article <405@wmt.UUCP>, by sani@wmt.UUCP (Sandor Nieuwenhuijs):
> Does anybody have information about a software development environment
> for ADA, called "Rational" ?
>
I worked as a project leader using the Rational environment for developing
cockpit flight displays at my previous employer.

The Rational Environment consists of a special computer and operating system.
The operating system is written in Ada and the command line uses Ada syntax 
so you are constantly imersed in the programming language. The operating system,
the file management system, the source code control system and the compiler are
very tightly coupled to the hardware. The version control system is also built in.

The editor supports statement completion, on the fly syntax checking, automatic
documentation generation based on a specialized form of commenting, and the abil-
ity to require commnet and documnetation before a file is committed to compilation.

The system supports incremental compilation.

We were the first project to go full bore into the environment, and we took a bunch of 
Pascal programmers and winged it. The documentation generation was fantastic, the 
code completion minimized time spent with our heads buried in the manuals and the version
control was flawless. My personal estimate was that it saved 30-40% of the time usually
spent to do a project of this size (40,000 LOC and 2500 pages of documentation).

Its expensive (don't remember the exact $$ for the cpu etc), but well worth it. You do have to watch for overloading the system and killing the response time. We found about 10 programmers was about right, 15 was too many.


Steve Sawyers
ssawyers@cadfx.ccad.uiowa.edu  

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[Dennis Moore]

ssawyers@cadfx.ccad.uiowa.edu (Steve Sawyers,212 ERF,,) writes:

[stuff about Rational Environment deleted]

>My personal estimate was that it saved 30-40% of the time usually
>spent to do a project of this size (40,000 LOC and 2500 pages of
>documentation).

Isn't this typical for a government project?!?  40,000 LOC and 2,500 pages
of documentation?  Are you serious?  40,000 lines of code is 667 pages (at
60 lines per page).  That's almost 4 pages of documentation per line of
code, even if your LOC counter doesn't count blank lines or comments as lines.

If ADA is such a wonderful, self-documenting, easy to code, easy to understand,
easy to maintain language (as the government claims it is), then why are 2,500
pages of documentation necessary?

-- Dennis Moore, my own opinions, blahblahblah

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[David Nettles]

In article <4722@rtech.rtech.com> dennism@menace.UUCP (Dennis Moore) writes:
>ssawyers@cadfx.ccad.uiowa.edu (Steve Sawyers,212 ERF,,) writes:
>
>Isn't this typical for a government project?!?  40,000 LOC and 2,500 pages
>of documentation?  Are you serious?  40,000 lines of code is 667 pages (at
>60 lines per page).  That's almost 4 pages of documentation per line of
>code, even if your LOC counter doesn't count blank lines or comments as lines.
>
>If ADA is such a wonderful, self-documenting, easy to code, easy to understand,
>easy to maintain language (as the government claims it is), then why are 2,500
>pages of documentation necessary?
>
>-- Dennis Moore, my own opinions, blahblahblah

Nice cheap shot.

Though not familiar with the particular project, I have worked both sides of
a DoD project (military and civilian contractor).  Let me list some of the 
attending documents that are required as deliverables, regardless of
language used.

  System Specification
  System Design Document
  Software Requirements Specification
  Software Development Plan
  Interface Requirements Specification
  Software Test Plan
  Interface Design Document
  Software Design Document
  Software Test Descriptions
  Software Test Reports
  Operation and Support Documents
  Version Description Document

The government is going to get their pound of documentation regardless of 
how wonderful the language is.
--

David Nettles 

info wanted on debugging concurrent tasks

[Clement Pellerin]

Debugging concurrent programs is becoming a hot research topic.

I hope to adapt Ada debugger technology to Concurrent C.
Since Ada programmers have been writing concurrent programs
for a long time, I suspect there must be some nice
debuggers out there.  We might learn some lessons
because for now, debugging Concurrent C
programs has been near to impossible.

What is the state of debugger technology for Ada?
I am especially interested in "methodologies" for debugging
concurrent programs, i.e some theory as to how to go about it.
Once a methodology is found, a debugger can be written to support
it.  The theory does not have to be mathematical.

So how do YOU go about debugging concurrent tasks?
Is debugging tasks as hopeless as debugging concurrent C processes?

I would like a small description of what your favorite
debugger can do together with any reference to articles
that you've seen.

thank you.
-- 
news <clement
Clement Pellerin, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
clement@opus.cs.mcgill.ca

Re: info wanted on debugging concurrent tasks

[Loren Louis Hart]

Most of the Ada debuggers are very nice, mostly because they are new and it
doesn't make sense to use obsolute techniques on a new system that you are
going to try to sell.

The best approach for debugging multiple tasks is in a windowing environment.
each task that you want to debug fires up it's own window and acts like it's
own debugger.  There are several systems like this, the one I am most familiar
with is the Vax VMS debugger running on a Vaxstation.  That particular 
debugger allows you to have one debugger per process.  The Vax Debugger
is not Ada spacific.  I have also had good luck using the Verdix Debugger.

I am sure I have missed some other good debuggers, but it is tough to stay
current on all of them.

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[George Mitchell]

In article <438@software.software.org> nettles@software.org (David Nettles)
writes:
` ....
`>Isn't this typical for a government project?!?  40,000 LOC and 2,500 pages
`>of documentation?  .... That's almost 4 pages of documentation per line of
`>code ...
`
`Nice cheap shot.
 ^^^^            ?
My arithmetic shows 16 LOC per page of documentation.  Is this so terrible
given the requirements of DOD-STD-2167A?  What does it have to do with Ada?
--


/s/ George   vmail: 703/883-6029
email:  mitchell@community-chest.mitre.org    [alt: gmitchel@mitre.arpa]
snail:  GB Mitchell, MITRE, MS Z676, 7525 Colshire Dr, McLean, VA  22102

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[RICK CARLE]

In article <4722@rtech.rtech.com>, dennism@menace.rtech.COM (Dennis Moore) writes:
> Isn't this typical for a government project?!?  40,000 LOC and 2,500 pages
> of documentation? ...  > If ADA is such a wonderful, self-documenting, easy
> to code, easy to understand, > easy to maintain language (as the government
> claims it is), then why are 2,500 pages of documentation necessary?

DoD-Std-2167 (& 2167A) is the true culprit here.  Total ignorance of the
project in question does not inhibit me from suggesting that its
excessive documentation is caused by 4 related problems.
1) Dod-Std-2167 and its insistence on too many documents with too much
  detail, all to describe a single program (a 2167 CSCI).
2) The tendency of software designers to map Ada compilation units (ie,
  procedures, functions, tasks, packages) to 2167 "units" (2167A CSUs),
  thus producing excessive paragraphs in the 2167/A SDDD & SDD documents.
  It would be better to map Ada packages (or Library Unit Groups ala
  Kaye Grau/Kathy Gilroy) to 2167 units.
3) The tendency of software designers, using Ada PDL, to over-design
  practically to the point of coding.  This causes every line of code to
  be part of the design.  This tendency has always been a problem with
  software designers, but Ada PDL gives them the best tool ever for
  committing their sins.  One solution is simple restraint, perhaps
  enforced by management.  A more practical solution might simply be to
  design no deeper than package specs.
4) The failure of government contracting officers and industry proposal
  managers to routinely tailor 2167 to the needs of the particular
  contract.  Proponents of 2167 have claimed (don't expect me to provide
  sources of quotes) that tailoring is essential to the successful
  application of 2167, but few contracts follow that doctrine.

	Rick Carle

Re: Rational ADA development environment

[Jeff Clark]

In article <4722@rtech.rtech.com> dennism@menace.rtech.COM (Dennis Moore) writes:

>   Isn't this typical for a government project?!?  40,000 LOC and 2,500 pages
>   of documentation?  Are you serious?  40,000 lines of code is 667 pages (at
>   60 lines per page).  That's almost 4 pages of documentation per line of
>   code, even if your LOC counter doesn't count blank lines or comments as
>   lines. 
>
>   If ADA is such a wonderful, self-documenting, easy to code, easy to
>   understand, easy to maintain language (as the government claims it is),
>   then why are 2,500 pages of documentation necessary?

Hmmmm...  When the users of *your* software systems need to learn how to
effectively make use of your products do you usually respond "Let them read
the source code..."?  Wasn't somebody famous once beheaded for an attitude
like this? :-)

Jeff Clark	Honeywell Systems and Research Center	Minneapolis, MN
inet: jclark@src.honeywell.com
uucp: jclark@srcsip.UUCP
DISCLAIMER: If you think I speak for my employer, you need serious help ...