Re: Silicon Valley techies suit up Army with sleeker gear

[Jim Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net>]

David Starner wrote:

> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 01:11:09 GMT, Ken Garlington <ken.garlington@computer.org> wrote:
> 
>>wireless card to allow Land Warrior computers to send data. The most
>>critical technical step: They wrote the software in common programming
>>language used by most software engineers, rather than using old government
>>programming language, as Raytheon had.... Soldiers say the newest Land
>>Warrior is the best version yet... 
>>
> 
> The soliders complain about it being overweight and clunky, and the most
> critical step has to do with the programming language? On the other
> hand, I don't recall hearing about a Windows CE targetted Ada compiler 


And why was Windows CE the only choice for operating systems?
We all know there are other real time operating systems on the market.
We also know that many of those other real time operating systems
support Ada.

Are you implying that the system worked because Windows CE was chosen
over other real time OS's? I find that very hard to believe.

I still wonder how well this little gem integrates into the overall
battlefield communication system using only off the shelf components
and a "quickie" software development. I expect it would take more than
three months to develop the parser for the Army's variable message
protocol.

I also wonder just how close to acceptance testing this gem is.
It is one thing to claim success as a system supplier. It is
another thing to pass DoD acceptance testing. I suspect the
customer has severe requirements concerning reliability,
maintainability, and weight. These requirements normally exceed
the performance of off the shelf hardware systems.

Jim Rogers