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From: dweller@dfw.net (David Weller)
Subject: Re: Ada policy enforcement
Date: 1996/03/29
Message-ID: <4jhfiu$7qk@dfw.dfw.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 145147219
references: <4jfomp$8h8@felix.seas.gwu.edu> <4jh3fq$27m@ra.nrl.navy.mil>
organization: DFWNet -- Public Internet Access
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-03-29T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <4jh3fq$27m@ra.nrl.navy.mil>,
Richard Pitre <pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>
>Laws and policies that facilitate what most people already 
>want to do are nice laws. DoD should invest in building an 
>environment where everyone is sensitive too and is properly rewarded
>for solving their problems. 
>
That's in the budget, right after stopping tidal effects and making
the world stop turning :-)

>economical use of computing power to our economic benefit. DoD
>can justify a much greater expenditure just based on the idea that a
>strong economy is one assurance of our country's ability to defend 
>itself in the long term. Software costs are starting to eat everyone's
>lunch.
>

Alas, the DoD still has nothing in place to reduce the costs.  Greg's
points, though poorly worded, are still close in some ways:
Management:
	No repurcussions for using a "non-standard" programming
	language (this doesn't mean only Ada, by the way).

	Budgets for development and maintenance are separate, so there
	is little to no correlation between "getting something done on
	time" and "is the finished product maintainable?"

	Lack of management oversight on "small budget" items (under
	$10M for DoD projects), which is where the biggest
	"violations" occur.

Technicians:
	Incredibly huge "civilian" structure that favors C/C++ (if
	only in perception).

	Ineffective mechanisms to make the promises of reuse a reality
	(and I happen to agree with Greg that "closed" Reuse
	Facilities are _not_ the way to foster productivity)

	Ineffectual mechanisms to incentivize educational foundations
	to objectively evaluate Ada and decide if it should be part of
	their curriculum.

	A well-established "counter-culture" to using Ada.  All of it
	based on Ada 83 and the technologies and marketing approaches
	associated with that language.

Jeez, we're not trying to get people to use Ada, we're trying to make
a bevvy of four year-olds eat carrots, spinach, and broccoli :-)

-- 
Ancient man: Web apps? Java!  OO stuff? Eiffel!  "Real-time" stuff? C/C++! 
Modern man: Web apps? Ada 95!  OO stuff? Ada 95!  "Real-time" stuff? Ada 95!
	Not a revolution...but evolution.  http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada