From: Sandy McPherson <sandy@wgs.estec.esa.nl>
Subject: Re: Gov't, non-DoD use of Ada
Date: 1996/09/12
Date: 1996-09-12T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3238382C.1E96@wgs.estec.esa.nl> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 4vnlgn$mko@uuneo.neosoft.com
Jon S Anthony wrote:
>
> > as much C as Ada used in ATC applications. It matters not at all that
> > Thompson/CSF has been using and touting Ada.
>
> In US FAA ATC? Or world wide ATC? The evidence so far indicated
> certainly seems to point that the use of just "ATC" here, is a very
> parochial view. Anyone really know?
>
AFAIK Eurocontrol are adherents of Ada, they provide the Europe wide
glue to stick national civilian ATC systems together. I haven't got a
clue what the CAA in the UK and the other national authorities use. All
military ATC systems that I know of in Europe are Ada, unless they are
ancient. I guess the Asians mainly buy their stuff from the US.
BTW. for those of us on the eastern side of the pond, why is the FAA up
tight about Ada?
Under normal circumstances why would anyone be bothered about a
language, if they are buying a turnkey system on fixed price?. The
Reliability, Availability, Maintenance and Safety (RAMS) analysis is the
relevant vehicle for language choice. Most of the cock-ups I've come
across are due to broken and/or incomplete requirements, or inadequate
resources, not the language choice. Would I be correct in assuming this
is the major reason for the FAA's problem? I did see one classic bungle
which was caused by use of a required language, but the cause was a lack
of a compiler for the chosen (due to political considerations) target.
(Don't ask me why the target and/or language wasn't changed)
In the position of a project manager on a tightly budgeted fixed price
contract I would want to play safe and use my own tried and tested
methods, languages, hardware etc.. Call me a Luddite if you will. but if
I had 20 experts who had written safety critical software in Ada for 10
years, I would not want to re-train them at huge cost and against their
will to do a system in C and conversely if I had a proven C development
team I would not be keen going the other way. It would of course be a
different matter if the customer was prepared to pay for all of this.
--
Sandy McPherson MBCS CEng. tel: +31 71 565 4288 (w)
ESTEC/WAS
P.O. Box 299
NL-2200AG Noordwijk
prev parent reply other threads:[~1996-09-12 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1996-08-24 0:00 Gov't, non-DoD use of Ada Robert B. Love
1996-08-26 0:00 ` John Woodruff
1996-09-05 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1996-09-05 0:00 ` Robert B. Love
1996-09-06 0:00 ` Chris Brand
1996-09-06 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1996-09-08 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1996-09-18 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1996-09-20 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1996-09-09 0:00 ` Alex P. Madarasz, Jr.
1996-09-08 0:00 ` Richard Riehle
1996-09-06 0:00 ` Ron Thompson
1996-09-09 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1996-09-10 0:00 ` Ron Thompson
1996-09-11 0:00 ` Kevin D. Heatwole
1996-09-06 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1996-09-10 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1996-09-10 0:00 ` Bob Noel
1996-09-16 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1996-09-17 0:00 ` Gov't, non-DoD use of Ada (C-based COTS no excuse...) David Emery
1996-09-12 0:00 ` Sandy McPherson [this message]
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