Ada waivers

Ada waivers

[byrne]

    Does anyone have any experience to share about getting an Ada waiver 
from the Air Force Systems Command.  How long does it take?  Can a small 
small assembly program avoid it?  What are the going odds for a 1750A project?
What are approaches to avoid?  What are the most effective arguments? etc.

                                                 Dan J. Byrne
                                                 The Aerospace Corporation

Re: Ada waivers

[David Gawron]

In article <81816@aerospace.AERO.ORG> byrne@arecibo.aero.org writes:
>
>    Does anyone have any experience to share about getting an Ada waiver 
>from the Air Force Systems Command.  How long does it take?  Can a small 
>small assembly program avoid it?  What are the going odds for a 1750A project?
>What are approaches to avoid?  What are the most effective arguments? etc.


To say the least, posting to comp.lang.ada in an effort to solicit
ideas on why Ada cannot be successfully applied to a software project
is quite a novel approach.

None the less, you need to give more information.  I can think of three
reasons why you are asking this question:

	1) existing software is going to be modified and someone
	   at AFSC insists that the upgrade be done in Ada,

	2) the software is to be newly created and AFSC is trying
	   to implement the DoD's directive on Ada,

	3) someone at AFSC got a wild hair up his/her butt and is
	   running around trying to save the world by cramming Ada
	   down your throat.

Be forewarned that I'm going to try and talk you out of the "it can't be
done in Ada" mind-set.  Before I try however I'd like to understand your
position.  It may be that you have a valid case, but I can't tell from
your vague statements above.

Here is the bad part; I'm going on vacation tomorrow and won't be back
until September 3rd.  I'm sure other denizens of this group will take
up Ada's standard in my absence.  I'll be happy to help out upon my return.


Dave Gawron
dgg@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu		(128.244.16.1)
gawron@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu	(128.220.101.4)

Ada Waivers

[Karl A. Nyberg]

I think the best approach to take is not that of a waiver but of a variance.
I think you'll have a tough time getting an entire project exempted from
using Ada these days.  If you had already selected your hardware AND there
weren't any Ada compilers for it, you might have a better chance.  However,
since the hardware you mention (1750A) has plenty of compilers available,
it's not likely.  You can get an exception, or variance, for parts of the
software, such as interfaces to outside packages or hardware, vital
performance loops, etc. but don't look to get a complete waiver -- they're
nigh on impossible to get these days.

The best approach is to show how you're doing some 90-odd percent of the
system in Ada already and show how the part for which you're requesting a
variance is limited to a small section of the code, one that is well defined
and fits into a single low level unit in whatever design approach you're
using.  This limits the long-term life-cycle maintenance effect, which is
one of the major concerns when applying for not using Ada.

-- Karl --

Re: Ada waivers

[Dan Bernstein]

In article <275@aplcomm.JHUAPL.EDU> dgg@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (David Gawron) writes:
> In article <81816@aerospace.AERO.ORG> byrne@arecibo.aero.org writes:
> >    Does anyone have any experience to share about getting an Ada waiver 
> >from the Air Force Systems Command.
> To say the least, posting to comp.lang.ada in an effort to solicit
> ideas on why Ada cannot be successfully applied to a software project
> is quite a novel approach.

Where would you expect the article to be? It's a quite reasonable topic
for this group. Do you think that all comp.lang.ada readers are Ada
fanatics? Do you think that, say, comp.lang.c isn't the appropriate
group for discussions of problems people have within the C community?

---Dan
``Ada isn't a religion. Ada is a disease.'' HJB