NRC Public Briefing on Ada

NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Software Engineering News]

The National Research Council has announced that the study "Ada and
Beyond:  Software Policies for the Department of Defense" will be
presented to the public on Friday, November 1, 1996, at 10 am.  This public
briefing will be held at the National Academy of Sciences, Room 150, 2101
Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20418.

The presentation will review the current rationales for using Ada as the
standard programming language of the DoD, discuss changes software
engineering has encounted over the last twenty years since the
establishment of the Ada program, and the future of Ada in the DoD.

For registration information, please contact Gloria Bemah at
202/334-2605(tel), 202/334-2318(fax), or gbemah@nas.edu.

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Stanley R. Allen]

Software Engineering News wrote:
> 
> The National Research Council has announced that the study "Ada and
> Beyond:  Software Policies for the Department of Defense" will be
> presented to the public on Friday, November 1, 1996, at 10 am.  This public
> briefing will be held at the National Academy of Sciences, Room 150, 2101
> Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20418.

Will there be a copy of the report avialible on-line
after this?

-- 
Stanley Allen
s_allen@hso.link.com

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Michael Feldman]

In article <32790AD2.446B@hso.link.com>,
Stanley R. Allen <s_allen@hso.link.com> wrote:

>> The National Research Council has announced that the study "Ada and
>> Beyond:  Software Policies for the Department of Defense" will be
>> presented to the public on Friday, November 1, 1996, at 10 am.  This public
>> briefing will be held at the National Academy of Sciences, Room 150, 2101
>> Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20418.

>Will there be a copy of the report avialible on-line
>after this?

I attended this briefing today. Your question was asked, and the answer
from NRC was that the full report will be on the NRC web site sometime
in November.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) 
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Pork is all that money the government gives the other guys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WWW: http://www.adahome.com or http://info.acm.org/sigada/education
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[BSCrawford]

Did anyone ask, at the briefing, for detail on just what is included 
under "war fighting"?  For example, how about training simulators 
used to train war fighters?  One could think of many other 
categories/domains about which there might be uncertainty. 

Bard Crawford
Stage Harbor Software

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Robert B. Love]

In <01bbca3c$b0579940$028371a5@dhoossr.iquest.com> "David C. Hoos, Sr." 
wrote:
> There was  considerable discussion of this point.  In fact, the 
language of
> the report appeared to specifically exempt simulations and logistics
> software from the requirement to use Ada -- but there were strenuous
> objections from two Army people to the effect that logistics and 
simulation
> are just as much "warfighting" as is embedded software in the things 
that
> "kill people and break things."

This is pretty absurd.  Simulators and mission planning tools are 
getting
closer together all the time.  The simulator uses the same information
and mostly the same hardware, as the real vehicle.  

As pointed out here by another angered reader, the new High Level 
Architecture
(HLA) for desiging simulators that play together is being planned in 
C++.
How can the DoD make this leap of ill-logic?  More importantly, how can 
I
protest this nonsense?


----------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Love, rlove@neosoft.com (local)        MIME & NeXT Mail OK
rlove@raptor.rmnug.org  (permanent)        PGP key available
----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Robert Dewar]

iBob Love said

"This is pretty absurd.  Simulators and mission planning tools are
getting
closer together all the time.  The simulator uses the same information
and mostly the same hardware, as the real vehicle."


To emphasize this point, one of the really tough problems we faced with
GNAT recently was a customer who was building a simulator and wanted
to use EXACTLY THE SAME CODE, character for character, that was in the
operational vehicle for the simulator.

That's a reasonable demand, although given that different compilers for
different languages (Ada 83 vs Ada 95) were involved, a little tough to
meet.

Turns out we had to add a couple of pragma Pack's and that was all (the VADS
compiler lets a size clause do implicit packing, something that is contrary
to the implementation advice in the Ada 95 RM, and something which NAT
GNAT does not feel like emulating).

Anyway, it took a bit of doing, but we got permission to add the pragma
Pack.. In fact expecting quite this level of compatibility in a situation
like this where the operational and simulation hardware are totally
different is a bit extreme, but the idea of writing the operational 
software in language x and the corresponding simulator software in language
y is totally nuts to me, for any possible choices of x and y!

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Ken Garlington]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> ...the idea of writing the operational
> software in language x and the corresponding simulator software in language
> y is totally nuts to me, for any possible choices of x and y!

The idea of using operational code for simulation/training purposes (or vice versa)
is definitely a "hot button" in the DoD right now. It should also be pointed out
that a lot of simulation/training code developed for military purposes can be
used for commercial purposes as well (and vice versa). Which means we start talking
about COTS, which means (I think) that we are well on our way to a major collision
between this "Ada for warfighting only" concept and "More reuse between 
commercial/COTS and warfighting software." Not that I have a solution, but I see the
train wreck coming...

-- 
LMTAS - "Our Brand Means Quality"
For more info, see http://www.lmtas.com or http://www.lmco.com

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Rush Kester]

David C. Hoos, Sr. (david.c.hoos.sr@ada95.com) wrote:
: There was  considerable discussion of this point.  In fact, the language of
: the report appeared to specifically exempt simulations and logistics
: software from the requirement to use Ada -- but there were strenuous
: objections from two Army people to the effect that logistics and simulation
: are just as much "warfighting" as is embedded software in the things that
: "kill people and break things."
: -- 
: David C. Hoos, Sr.,

Having successfully used Ada 83 on simulators (e.g., spacecraft orbit,
attitude, and other telemetry data), the exclusion of "simulators" is a
disappointing suprise!  :-(   By successful, I mean, SIGNIFICANTLY
increased reuse, decreased error rate, smaller development/maintenance 
teams, and shorter delivery time than earlier Fortran systems, with
similar differences in the spacecrafts being simulated.  The increased
power and flexibility of Ada 95 would only widen the advantage of Ada over
other languages.  See (SEL-95-001), "Impact of Ada and Object-Oriented
Design in the Flight Dynamics Division at NASA/GSFC" at
http://fdd.gsfc.nasa.gov/selprods.html

These findings are also summarized in a paper presented at the
last WAdaS conference.  BTW, this paper will be included in the special
"Best of WAdaS'96" issue of SIGAda Letters to be published in the not to
distant future. 

Rush Kester
Sr. Software Engineer
Disclaimer:  The views expressed above are mine and do not necessarily
reflect those of my company or its customers.
W (301) 640-3632 (in person M-F: 9am-5pm EST, voicemail any time)
Fax        -4750 or -4940
-- 
Rush Kester
W (301) 640-3632 (in person M-F: 9am-5pm EST, voicemail any time)
Fax        -4750 or -4940

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Tucker Taft]

Rush Kester (rkester@csc.com) wrote:

: Having successfully used Ada 83 on simulators (e.g., spacecraft orbit,
: attitude, and other telemetry data), the exclusion of "simulators" is a
: disappointing suprise!  ...

Remember, the NRC committee recommendations deal with in what domains Ada 
should be mandated, not in what domains Ada should be considered for use.
Ada can and should be used wherever it makes business and technical sense.

: Rush Kester
: Sr. Software Engineer
: Disclaimer:  The views expressed above are mine and do not necessarily
: reflect those of my company or its customers.
: W (301) 640-3632 (in person M-F: 9am-5pm EST, voicemail any time)
: Fax        -4750 or -4940
: -- 
: Rush Kester
: W (301) 640-3632 (in person M-F: 9am-5pm EST, voicemail any time)
: Fax        -4750 or -4940

-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
Intermetrics, Inc.  Cambridge, MA  USA

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Suzanne B. Zampella]

Tucker Taft wrote:
> 
> Rush Kester (rkester@csc.com) wrote:
> 
> : Having successfully used Ada 83 on simulators (e.g., spacecraft orbit,
> : attitude, and other telemetry data), the exclusion of "simulators" is a
> : disappointing suprise!  ...
> 
> Remember, the NRC committee recommendations deal with in what domains Ada
> should be mandated, not in what domains Ada should be considered for use.
> Ada can and should be used wherever it makes business and technical sense.
> 

Yeah, But I believe Rush's point is that after so many years of trying
to get around the mandates on Ada--just because they didn't want to be
old what to do-- companies are going to see the dropped mandate as
freedom.  it will be a while before they grow up enough to realize what
the European market has known for years...Ada is just plain better. 
Reminds me of Sunday's "Hi and Lois" Comic strip.

Suzanne Zampella
Ada Software Engineer for 13 years and counting.  Windmill jousting at
no additional charge!

Re: NRC Public Briefing on Ada

[Kevin Locke]

Michael Feldman wrote:
 
> I attended this briefing today. Your question was asked, and the answer
> from NRC was that the full report will be on the NRC web site sometime
> in November.
> 
> Mike Feldman



And the web site would be ?
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