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: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-02-28 18:46:11 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!peernews-us.colt.net!newsfeed.news2me.com!newsfeed2.easynews.com!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:56:28 -0800 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3E60215B.8E1CB727@adaworks.com> References: <3E5EDCB1.C841AFDD@adaworks.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 41.b2.61.dc Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 1 Mar 2003 02:46:10 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:34753 Date: 2003-03-01T02:46:10+00:00 List-Id: 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