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: 103376,9e3222ec528646b1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-11 16:02:40 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!wn13feed!wn12feed!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!sccrnsc02.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3EBED68A.7010705@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Enforcing good software process References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.62.164.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc02 1052694157 24.62.164.137 (Sun, 11 May 2003 23:02:37 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 23:02:37 GMT Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 23:02:37 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:37204 Date: 2003-05-11T23:02:37+00:00 List-Id: Rod Chapman wrote: > We have delivered software with warranties, and we will continue to > do so. Examples are CDIS (part of the London air-traffic management > systems), SHOLIS, and the MULTOS CA. In the case of the latter > project, four defects were reported in the first year of operation - these > were corrected under our warranty at no cost to our client. That reminded me of one of my favorite Ada stories from way back. Honeywell Small Systems Division--its name changed several times while I was there and it is now part of Bull--did a study to see which systems programming language should be chosen to replace assembler. Three languages were chosen for further testing C, Pascal, and Ada. Two of six implementation projects for the next OS version all about the same size and complexity were chosen for the study. One of the Pascal projects was shifted to Ada when it was determined during the detailed design phase that concurrency support was needed in the programming language. The three Ada projects came in on time and on budget as did one of the C projects. The other two projects were over schedule and budget, but that is not the story. Six months after the OS version containing all these projects shipped, there was a meeting to review the support costs. The OS support manager was a big C fan and dead set against Ada. He showed lots of charts that indicated that when repairing STARS (bug reports) on the C projects turnaround was twice as fast as with assembler, and the cost per report was a third less. "What about the Ada projects?" he was asked by the division manager. "Oh, we don't know what it costs to fix bugs in the Ada systems. There haven't been any reported." To this day, I don't think he understands why everyone present started laughing uncontrollably. Similarly I was involved with one DoD project where "safety critical" was a total understatement. (One joke among the requirements analysis team was that if there was an accidental nuclear war, this system would insure that we won it.) Several years after deployment, I was copied on an analysis of remaining problems with the system. There was just one. The decision on whether to have the original contractor maintain the software or to do it organically (within the Air Force) had never been made. Under reasons? "No software maintenance has been required." That I could live with.