Re: Is the Ada World Embarrassed by the Defense Industry?

[Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com>]

Ken Garlington wrote:
> 
> While looking at the SIGAda 2000 web site, I notice that the role of Ada in
> defense applications is minimized (even after the explicit requirements in
> this area were dropped). For example, the list of "recent" successful
> Ada-based systems includes only commercial projects, some five years old,
> although one of the most recent Ada success stories occurred just a few days
> ago (October 24). I also notice that an interview last year with Tucker Taft
> included the statement "These days we?re focused mostly on commercial
> success stories..." I can understand wanting to promote commercial
> applications, but isn't this going a little overboard?

In my experience (which is admittedly limited), DoD folks are not
interested in military success stories; they want to see technology
that is commercially successful.  Unfortunately, it seems that commercial
folks are also not particularly interested in a language that is associated
with defense.  Hence, there seems no particular upside in spending energy
researching defense success stories, as nobody seems to be willing to
use them as a reason to consider Ada.

If the story really emphasized how Ada was *not* mandated, and was chosen
because of its inherent advantages, and it delivered successfully, then
the fact that it was a military project would hopefully not get in the
way of someone using it as a reason to consider Ada.  In general, the commercial
marketplace has a bit of a love/hate relationship with the military
marketplace.  And the military marketplace seems to have a love/hate relationship
with itself ;-).

> 
> http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigada/conf/sigada2000/
> http://206.144.247.86/vol18_no18/interview/118-1.html
> http://www.lmaeronautics.com/news/press/jsf/jsf_1stflight.html

-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Commercial Division, AverStar (formerly Intermetrics)
(http://www.averstar.com/services/IT_consulting.html)  Burlington, MA  USA