From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c6e9700a33963193 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Marin David Condic Subject: Re: The future of Ada Date: 1999/03/11 Message-ID: <36E7E5E4.9FB37144@pwfl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 453827903 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: condicma@bogon.pwfl.com References: <36E690FA.4B9C@sandia.gov> <7c7coa$nvt$4@plug.news.pipex.net> <1999Mar11.080820.1@eisner> <36E7DC3C.8B322F23@silver.jhuapl.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Pratt & Whitney Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: diespammer@pwfl.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-03-11T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Scott Ingram wrote: > > Unfortunately, this probably will not work for Gordon--as the program > manager has already inserted a "six month slip" just for the > conversion. It might seem obvious to CLA readers that this "six month > slip" is only the first of many, and I personally don't like explaining > any slips at all...but a program that can tolerate six months may have > an entirely different perspective. > Yeah, but it is a 6 month slip that is completely unnecessary. The argument that it is a risk mitigation just plain doesn't wash. You can pretty much assume that you'll have a safe supply of Ada programmers for - say - the next 5 years? In 5 years, you look again and if it looks like the last Ada programmer on the planet is about to die, you pay him to re-code it in C++ (or whatever!). Yeah, you've got verification costs, but we're still talking about spending money now that you might not ever have to spend - and doing so for very little risk mitigation. If its a DoD system, then its even sillier, because in 5 years, if the last Ada programmer augers in, you'll get the DoD to pay for the conversion. In the end, it just plain won't cost that much to custom-train some Ada programmers to maintain the system - certainly not as much as this 6 month slip will cost, and you probably won't ever have to spend that money. We've got a very similar situation here, where we committed to the Motorola M68040 ten or so years ago only to find out years later that Motorola wasn't going to supply us with Mil Spec chips anymore. Guess what? Somebody is going to have to pay us to convert the box to a new chip. Actually, you're much more at risk long term for changes in hardware technology rather than software technology. As long as you've got the same hardware and a compiler, you can very cheaply keep someone maintaining it. (Care to hear about our guys who are maintaining some _very_ old systems in an obscure assembler language because the program can't afford a hardware upgrade?) But let a critical hardware supplier bail out on you and you're back to a total redesign of the system. It happens and you just have to eat the cost. And it happens a _lot_ more often than discovering that you can't find/train someone to maintain some old code because it is in an obscure language. MDC -- Marin David Condic Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600 ***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.*** "Software engineers are, in many ways, similar to normal people" -- Scott Adams