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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,LOTS_OF_MONEY, T_MONEY_PERCENT autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,2def9aa85afa5d22 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-11-06 08:53:06 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!xyzzy!nntp From: Rex Reges Subject: Re: Joint Strike Fighter X-Nntp-Posting-Host: e919331.sea.boeing.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <3BE813E4.C4797DDE@reges.org> Sender: nntp@news.boeing.com (Boeing NNTP News Access) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: The Boeing Company X-Accept-Language: en References: <3BDCE159.39F6D422@adaworks.com> <11bf7180.0110290311.4d8d6f04@posting.google.com> <3BDF9C6A.C25520C5@adaworks.com> <3BE023AB.8F235EF5@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> <9rp8mo$6d8$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9rrmvl$98d$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3BE4221B.34589071@adaworks.com> <3BE43CDC.F6B1EE30@acm.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:46:28 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en]C-CCK-MCD Boeing Kit (Win95; U) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:15926 Date: 2001-11-06T16:46:28+00:00 List-Id: Ted Dennison wrote: > > For a while back when I worked for LMCO, the philosophy I heard floating around > was "Price to win, work to cost." This basicly meant that the only real > consideration in a bid was if it was low enough to win the contract. You will > then essentially have engineering work until the money runs out and either the > project is delivered, or you can no longer convince the agency to cough up more > money. For military contracts, the more common scenario is that the project is replanned due to shifting politics or global events. Once the contract is won, then you sock the Government for big bucks to accomadate constantly shifting requirements, changing project funding profiles, etc. It's all cost plus. In the worst-case scenario, a project may come to an end and the Government's audit (FCA/PCA) discoveres that a bunch of requirements haven't been met and a bunch of work hasn't been completed. The big shots in the Pentagon aren't going to take a fall, so they accept things as delivered. When I worked for the Government, I would have been happy to get 50% of what the contract asked for! What about Ada? Like the Macintosh, Beta VCRs and the Vax, Ada's superiority is admired by those in the know. That matters squat to management who want to earn that multi-million dollar bonus that the Government offered the JSF winner for being staffed up upon Contract Award. If you need several hundred programmers tomorrow because you heard rumors (in Business Week) that you've won, then you take whatever you can get. I doubt that one could get several hundred Ada programmers in a pinch. I couldn't hire six experienced Ada contractors in six months! And try to get them to move to some tornado infested place like Oklahoma City (who knows what Fort Worth holds). Of course we could train C++ programmers. So we pay $75/hour for their time and send them to training too! And if you do, then you have inexperienced Ada programmers. It's not like Ada inhibits people from doing stupid things (like creating a C interpreter in Ada to get out of writing everything in Ada). What to do? I'm scrounging the junk heaps for a thrown out Vax to connect to my Mac so I can make Beta videos of Digital's fantastic Ada83 compiler at work:) Rex Reges