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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d274f280c8c4a8b8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-02-24 07:32:56 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.uchicago.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!newsfeed.mathworks.com!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.72!wnfilter2!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3C790774.3010601@worldnet.att.net> From: Jim Rogers User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011128 Netscape6/6.2.1 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Mainstream Ada References: <3C77CF8C.93F1837@adaworks.com> <3C78943B.9030600@mail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 15:32:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.86.35.202 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1014564774 12.86.35.202 (Sun, 24 Feb 2002 15:32:54 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 15:32:54 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20332 Date: 2002-02-24T15:32:54+00:00 List-Id: Larry Kilgallen wrote: > So it is not that developers who choose Ada need to forgo features. > Rather, it is that developers who choose features over quality > have no particular incentive to choose Ada. Those nasty checks > will get in the way of time-to-market. > I would state this a little bit differently. Those nasty checks are perceived to get in the way of time-to-market. My personal experience is that those nasty checks improve time-to-market by catching a lot of critical errors very early in the development cycle. I have told this story before in this forum, but I will repeat it here. My previous job put me in the position of software lead in a small privately held company doing robotics work. I hired in two more software engineers to complete the software development team. We were developing a robotic control system under a contract to the US Army. We were also tasked to be the first shop in the world to implement the Army's Joint Architecture for Unmanned Ground Systems (JAUGS). Our company chose Ada. I was able to hire two highly experienced Ada software engineers. One had 15 years experience developing software to control radar systems for the US Air Force. The other had 10 years experience developing jet engine control software for Pratt and Whitney. The three of us took the project from initial requirements through final qualification tests in two years, producing 200K SLOC. This project was subject to normal DoD processes including design reviews by the customer, and copious formal documentation. During the same period I was our company representative on the JAUGS Working Group, refining the JAUGS architecture. Other members of the working group came from industry (i.e. Boeing and SAIC and others), Government (i.e. US Navy, Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Testing, Army Missile Command), and academia (i.e. University of Florida). All the other members of the working group were using C++ to develop their own systems. All the other groups had much larger development teams than my company. We were the only group that produced an entirely new system from the beginning. All the other groups managed to add one or two features to their existing platforms in the same time period. I am convinced we could not have achieved the same level of productivity in the robotics domain using any other language. What ever happened to that robotic system? The owner of the company became blinded by his own narcissism. He laid off the entire software team just before the Army accepted the project. The Army was shocked by this behavior and pulled the contract from the company. The company has gone from about 75 people to about 4 people since then. Jim Rogers