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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,eac8d804189288a7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-02-12 08:47:11 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!hub1.nntpserver.com!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.atl.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Silicon Valley techies suit up Army with sleeker gear Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 08:53:42 -0800 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3C694896.6B4AA199@adaworks.com> References: <3C6724A4.7000307@worldnet.att.net> <3C675F89.2BC474E@adaworks.com> <3C677CF2.2060806@mail.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 9e.fc.cc.82 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 12 Feb 2002 16:46:46 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:19946 Date: 2002-02-12T16:46:46+00:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen wrote: > Richard Riehle wrote: > > This is not a language issue. It is a competency issue. > > Heh. You know I'm eventually going to have to quote this > back to you :-) Most software debacles of this sort can be traced back to poor requiremenents plannning. The failure of Raytheon, as described in the article, sounds like a failure to ask, "What problem are we trying to solve and what is the context in which we are trying to solve it?" If one is solving the wrong problem, no collection of development tools is going to make a difference. It seems the engineers from Silicon Valley took the time to ask the fundamental questions. They knew what problem they wanted to solve. Their choice of development tools, once started, might have been better. Windows CE may not be the most reliable operating system but it does the job, for now. Let's see how it holds up in the field after it has been on the job for a longer period of time. My original point was that, Ada was never the culprit here. I have seen developers blame Ada for their own incompetency before. When one large company mismanged its contract to build an ATC and failed to meet its contractual goals, it found it easy to blame Ada. Pure silliness, but they needed some excuse for their failure. Meanwhile, other companies have done excellent ATC software using Ada. Of course, your point, not too subtly lying beneath the surface of your warning (I did see the smiley) is that language would not matter. On this we disagree. The more experience I have with C++, and the more I study it, the more convinced I am that it is more error-prone than Ada. While I agree that one can (underscore can), build reliable software with C++, it is more difficult to ensure the dependability of the final product. We will have to agree to disagree on this point. Language does matter once one has decided what problem is to be solved. However, if one has made poor choices in the problem analysis stage, no engineering expertise, programming language, or development method will save them from creating a dumb solution. Richard Riehle