Re: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Then let's put this spin on it: Quit trying to sell Ada to Lockmart and 
getting pissed off at them when they don't buy it because it isn't the 
current "fad" language. Go find some whozits that the world needs/wants 
and doesn't care about the language in which it is implemented. (There 
are millions of examples - look around on your home computer and at all 
the electronic things in your house just to get started) Go build one 
and sell it.

What about various marine applications? No FAA to get in your way. 
Possibly some kind of useful app that works with GPS and a PC? Or 
controller systems for things on the smaller boats? (Like 40/60 foot 
yachts - not the big container ships, etc. They've already got lots of 
electronics on them.)

If Lockheed doesn't want to see the sweet light of reason and Ada 
*REALLY* is that much better, then it ought to be possible to go start a 
venture that uses Ada as a competitive advantage.

MDC


Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> 
> 	After 20 years at "Flockheed", one has to suggest that
> practically nothing gets built UNTIL a customer appears with the $$$...
> Which puts us back to your first sentence (as quoted) "...the customer
> wants...".
> 
> 	And when it isn't "customer" driven, it is still management
> bean-counter driven. "Teaching" a language is "overhead", and seldom
> considered viable. A program I'd been on finally had the chance to move
> a subsystem from PDP-11 Macro-11 to microVAX... The program had ~80
> experienced FORTRAN programmers, and 10 Macro-11. Guess what language
> they picked to port the subsystem...
> 
> 	Pascal! Justification: it was the language most new-hires were
> familiar with (right... TurboPascal on an MS-DOS/Windows 3.x system is
> going to be sufficient for realtime/multi-process VMS programming). Oh,
> along with one member of the Macro-11 staff, who seemed to have some
> influence...
> 
> 	When the "survey" came through, I suggested either FORTRAN -- as
> we had a large staff familiar with it -- or, if they were going to go
> the mile to pick unproven Pascal, they could surely fall over an extra
> foot and pick Ada.
> 
> 	A few years later, when the manager left, he supposedly admitted
> that Pascal was /not/ the best choice.
> 
> 	In the last year, the descendent of that program put out
> openings for programmers... This time they wanted Java. I tried to get
> back in (I'd been laid-off from the program a few years ago, when the
> section I'd been part of died of old age) -- one would think having
> spent 20 years /on/ the program would be a good point. Instead, they'd
> rather hire "experienced" Java programmers who need to undergo full
> security clearance investigations AND be taught what the program does --
> rather than bring in someone whose clearance could probably be
> reactivated with a short update, knows the program, and had some ability
> with multiple languages (if a master of only one).
> 
> --  
>  > ============================================================== <
>  >   wlfraed@ix.netcom.com  | Wulfraed  Dennis Lee Bieber  KD6MOG <
>  >      wulfraed@dm.net     |       Bestiaria Support Staff       <
>  > ============================================================== <
>  >           Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/>            <
>  >        Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/>        <


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================