Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died

[Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> And Richard, I hope this didn't sound like I was in any way criticizing you.

A lifetime of being criticized has not harmed me.  Rather, it has helped
me, I hope, learn a little bit now and then.   Anyone who wants to heap
criticism upon me is welcome to do so.  Someone once said, "I can deal
with it when you love me or when you hate me. I go really bonkers when
I am ignored."

> I guess I have been as frustrated with the whole conduct of "The Mandate" as
> any of us and I just see the proper response to the whole debacle as being
> one of "Lets forget 'The Mandate' and go forth and demonstrate Ada is better
> by building useful, successful products with it.

I fully agree.  I do believe I have posted similar encouragements over my
years as a member of this forum.


> " If the DoD contractors had
> quit whining about Ada and just gone forth figuring out how to use it
> successfully to build *their* products, both they and Ada would have been
> better off. If we're right and Ada *is* better at building apps, then we
> ought to be able to make successful commercial products with it and
> out-compete the folks using C/C++/Java/etc.

There is some indication, not authoritatively documented, that those very
DoD contractors had behind the scenes input, at the very top of their
organizations (sometimes at the CEO level) from powerful purveyors
of alternative technologies.  One could see this in terms of a conspiracy
theory, and I hate that kind of thing.  However,  I have been told of a
meeting between two powerful people, one of whom was a CEO of
a major defense corporation and the other a powerful person within
the DoD where the CEO made it clear they wanted no more Ada.

I wish I could validate this, but the DoD person in question will neither
confirm nor deny that such a meeting took place.  If the DoD had been
successful in converting all software to Ada, the economic impact on
other development technologies would have been quite significant.  Some
of the same forces that successfully thwarted Ada also tried to thwart
the Java initiative.  In the case of Java, Sun Microsystems was more
clever than the saboteurs, and have so far been able to parry the thrusts
made by the newer competing technologies.   Recently, even C++ has
been set on the run by Java.

Someone, about two years ago said, "The language wars are over and
C++ is the winner."    What we now realize is that the language wars
are not over, and no one is really the winner.   If there is a loser, it
is the Department of Defense which allowed its own successes with
the Ada policy to be squandered.  It is a clear case of the famous
expression, "... grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory."

The fact that Ada continues to be a better technology for a large
class of problems means that it is still there to be discovered.  Indeed,
we see more and more people rediscovering it even as some contractors,
ignorant of the gold that lies at their feet, abandon it in favor of less
worthy technologies.

Most recently, I became aware of an organization that has abandoned
both Ada and C++ in favor of Java.   Given the nature of their mission,
I find this an absurd decision.    There is no indication that Java is
anywhere close to being appropriate for real-time embedded military
systems.   Those of you who read my recent article in Crosstalk know
that I am skeptical of how well the DoD can manage a multiple-language
policy since it could not manage a single-language policy.  Things are
likely to get worse before they get better.   Of course, I hope I am
wrong about that.

Richard Riehle