Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered?

[Michael Levasseur <levass@gdesystems.com>]

This weeks "Military & Aerospace Electronics" publications has
an excellent called "Has Ada software language fallen from
grace inside DOD?".

To paraphase it, it states the the movement to COTS, the loss
of credible compiler companies, company management, and DOD
management are all contributing to the demise of the Ada 
mandate.

Alot of these issues are very relevant.

I'll cover these one by one:
COTS - These movement to COTS hass been including move and
more code that has been written in C++ as well 4GL stuff.
Forgetting the wisdom of using COTS on DoD software, interfacing
Ada to C is farely painless. Interfacing Ada to 4GL, commercial
applications, C++ or JAVA are all a major undertaking.

The loss of credible compiler companies - As the number of credible
compiler companies shinks and DoD software budgets continue to
shink getting a vendor for the particular platform are harder and
also more expensive. Ada has not and probably never will overcome
the stigma of being developed by the Government.

Company Management - Many DoD companies now don't really worry
about complying with the DoD directive. They just tell the
customer that inorder to meet timeing and space requirements
C or C++ must be used. This is usually bogus, Ada can usually
satify the requirements. Yes the Ada code must be written tight
and with some forethought, but bad Ada is just as bad as bad C or 
C++.

DoD Management - The DoD lets the companies get away with this
and as DoD's clout diminishes as DoD companies start to work on 
comercial companies as well as software engineers don't want to
chase a skill/tool that is going to die!!!

I've been programming in Ada and C for the last 10 years. I
personally believe that Ada is better for software development.
More maintainable, better information hiding and encapsulation.
Unfortunately, the economics law called "the law of diminishing
returns" this law basically says that the old saying
"if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to
your door" is incorrect. Although Ada is better, C and C++ will
probably be the winner. Remember Beta vs. VHS or IBM vs. MAC.

This is all my 0.02 worth.....