Re: Donald's F-22 Question

[Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM>"@raytheon.com>]

Richard Riehle wrote:

> Returning to Donald's original question, repeated at the end of this message.
>
> I have been interested in the thread that started this.   Lots of good
> comments have been posted.  No one has directly address Donald's
> question vis a vis the F-22.
>
> The F-22 software is clearly a problem.   There are probably programmers
> out there who read these forums and have direct involvment with
> this project.   It would be interesting to hear from one or more of
> them.
>
> Richard Riehle
>
> ======================================================
>
> > "Donald L. Dobbs" wrote:
> >
> > > Not to belabor a point, but one of the lead stories today on the
> > > Aviation Week web site www.aviationnow.com describes how the F-22
> > > program is now some $800 million overrun because of delays caused by
> > > unreliable software.  They can get it to run for about 8 hrs in the lab
> > > before it crashes, but in the actual test flights it fails within 3.5
> > > hours forcing the pilot to reboot the system while in mid-flight.  If
> > > they are using Ada as you contend, then this is a terrible indictment
> > > and confirms what I had heard earlier about the language's shortcomings.

I worked for Lockheed during part of the F22 development period although not
directly
on the F22 program but on another aircraft system (in Ada also).  The problem is
a common one on large programs - mostly one of management.  Managers assume
all engineers are alike.  There were a few good Ada programmers and a lot of
average
or below average AdaTran and AdaC programmers ("I can write Fortran (or C) in any

language" people).  The overall code that resulted, while Ada, was certainly not
good Ada.
It was a mess to get working and resulted in huge cost overruns, but I would
guess it would
have been much worse if they had used some other language.  Certainly using Ada
does
not solve all the problems but it does make the job a little easier of having a
wide variety
of skill levels involved on a large project.  With some good management (rarer
than hen's
teeth) and letting the minority of top notch software engineers manage and
enforce a good
process, great results can be achieved even with a lot of lessor skilled people
on the team.
This may be true in other languages as well, but more so in Ada, and every
advantage helps
in a large project like this.

Jerry
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Jerry Petrey
-- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation (GPS/INS), Guidance, & Control
-- Raytheon Missile Systems          - Member Team Ada & Team Forth
-- NOTE: please remove <NOSPAM> in email address to reply
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------