Ada in Australia (was Ada ad in Embedded Systems Programming stinks)

[bjw@f111.iassf.easams.com.au (Brendan WALKER)]

In article <9410131051.AA29342@eurocontrol.de>,
Bob Wells #402  <wel@EUROCONTROL.DE> wrote:
>Brendan WALKER <bjw@F111.IASSF.EASAMS.COM.AU> writes
>
>> PS: We do NOT have an Ada mandate from our DoD in Australia, but on
>> some defence projects in the past Ada has been specified. This practice
>> is now almost extinct.
>
>G'day Brendan,
>Do you mean that the Collins submarine project, the ANZAC frigate project
>and the JOHRN project aren't being done in Ada?
>Bob W. (-:

G'day to you too, Bob,

No, that is not what I meant. The three programs that you mention were all
contracted between 3 and 7 years ago! Some of these are in fact the projects
to which I was referring where Ada has been mandated in the past. Note that
in these cases, Ada was in fact mandated by the project office concerned,
specifically for the one project only.

My original statement that "We do NOT have an Ada mandate from our DoD in
Australia" is correct.

Note also that about 9 out of 10 RFT's coming out of the Australian DoD in
the past few years DO NOT mandate Ada. The typical statement is that "A high
level language, such as Ada, C, or C++ should be used". There is also
usually a big emphasis on the use of COTS, (Commercial Off The Shelf),
software in any proposed solution.

It is also worth noting that of three Ada projects you mentioned, I know for 
a fact that at least two of these are in SERIOUS trouble, facing serious
architectual/design problems and the resulting cost and schedule slip (like 3+
years late!!).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
Brendan Walker		| The opinions expressed above are obviously
IASSF Project, 		| the ramblings of a troubled mind, and 
EASAMS (Australia)	| therefore not those of my employer.