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: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-25 18:31:16 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!207.217.77.102!newsfeed2.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.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 18:32:04 -0700 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3EA9E194.BAC2A2B6@adaworks.com> References: <8qkczsAcGcn+Ew83@nildram.co.uk> <3EA04A1E.CAFC1FEF@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0304221126.7112b7d5@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304230439.55d28e70@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304240503.54dbc5d1@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304250437.38893d8c@posting.google.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.bb.89.41 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 26 Apr 2003 01:31:15 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:62688 comp.object:62035 comp.lang.ada:36582 misc.misc:13700 Date: 2003-04-26T01:31:15+00:00 List-Id: soft-eng wrote: > So you are saying the Ada projects that succeeded were secret, > and the ones that were not secret did not succeed? Go to www.adaic.org. There are plenty of case histories of Ada projects that succeeded. This includes a large number of Air Traffic Control systems, commercial aircraft avionics, power industry systems, manufacturing process control systems, transportation systems, the global positioning satellites, many communication satellites (Intelsat VII, for one), and more. They are not secret. They are simply not widely publicized. Notice that these systems tend to be large-scale, safety-related, and have long lifetimes. The fact that you are personally ignorant of Ada, its successes, and its benefits does not detract from its history in the building of successful systems. The fact that some software developers have used Ada badly does not imply there is a problem with the language. Rather, it implies that those developers are less competent than those who have used it successfully. I have seen people take on Ada projects and fail. I have seen others take on Ada projects and succeed beyond what they would have believed possible when they first started. Those who failed would probably have failed using any other toolset or language. More often than not, the failure is due to stupid project management. At least one huge project in Ada failed because the people managing it were incompetent, and Ada was their scapegoat. All they could do, for years afterward, was denigrate the language. The programmers, many of whom I know quite well, knew the real cause was not Ada, but the people in charge of making it work. One well-known company, a manufacturer of office copying machines, allowed one of its software development groups to build the embedded software in Ada. The group, and the manager, was amazed at their success and decided they wanted to use Ada for future projects. The corporate level management of this company (a company already known for its record of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory) dictated that all software would henceforth be written in C, this in spite of the phenomenal success of Ada. There are plenty of success stories outside the Department of Defense. In fact, Ada in the hands of competent commercial developers may have been more successful, if not more widespread, than in the weapon systems area. You may want to grouse about the language you seem not to understand, and that is your right. However, those of us who do understand it find your deprecatory commentary to be the ranting of an uniformed person whose opinion is based on nothing more than hot air or personal failure. When you look at the successes of those who do know how to build software, you will find that Ada measures up quite well against any competing technology. Richard Riehle