Re: Ada vs. C Comparison Data ?

[sampson@cod.nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson)]

In article <9108051956.AA05473@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> byrne@ARECIBO.AERO.ORG ("DAN J
. BYRNE") writes:
>
>  I have been asked to find data that justifies using Ada as opposed 
>to C (or C++) for a large distributed system using UNIX workstations.
>I need technical reasons, such as maintenance costs, error rates, COTS
>tools and risk.  The data needs to be hard numbers with citable sources.
>Simply saying that Ada has a lower total life-cycle cost won't hack it.

     The Air Force has recently completed a study that might be what you
need.  It was done under the direction of Lloyd Mosemann, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Air Force for Communications, Computers, and Logistics.
The point was to compare Ada and C++ to determine when waivers for C++
might be warranted.  Five contractors looked at different facets of the
question.  All five came to the same conclusion: There are no compelling
reasons to waive the Ada requirement to use C++.  I don't recall that they
specifically addressed the issue of UNIX workstations but the results are
probably valid even if they didn't.

     For four of the five contractors, "hard" data were used.  (As hard
as such data can be in an area like this.)  The fifth's facet was inher-
ently more blue sky, so hard data were impossible.

     I don't know what the official channel is to get a copy of this re-
port.  The one I have came from my local Alsys representative and looked
like about a 30th generation Xerox.

                              Charlie