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=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE, MSGID_SHORT,REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!sei!rsd From: rsd@sei.cmu.edu (Richard S D'Ippolito) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada success story Message-ID: <5248@ae.sei.cmu.edu> Date: 7 Dec 89 17:38:09 GMT References: <14075@grebyn.com> Reply-To: rsd@sei.cmu.edu (Richard S D'Ippolito) Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA List-Id: I appreciate Dave Emery's request for a moratorium on flames and a return to business. I will do both, but still respond to Mr. Holden's recent address: In article <14075@grebyn.com> ted@grebyn.com (Ted Holden) writes: >>From Jeffrey Stewart: Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA > >>We have just finished a project to implement all of the control software >>plus some signal-processing software, in Ada, for a Millimeter-Wave radar >>seeker for the Maverick missile. > >>Its about 7500 lines of code, based on an object-oriented design, does >>signal-processing, provides dual-loop control for the antenna, provides >>mission control for the entire missile, plus some other things. And it >>does it at 600Hz, on a 10MHz 80286. There is NO ASSEMBLER. The goal >>was a complete Ada artifact, and the goal was achieved. > >You're not really telling us very much here... most importantly, what >all did you have to turn off? What if anything differentiated your use >of Ada from most people's use of Pascal (other than cost)? What you mean is, he's not really telling you what you want to hear. If you are really interested in this project, you can talk to someone who attended the recent TRI-Ada conference in Pittsburgh, where Mr. Steve Pate, the lead engineer from Hercules, spoke at length about the whole design and implementation, including compiler selection. Better yet, you may wish to loosen your purse strings and attend the AdaJUG meeting in San Diego in February, where the same gentleman will speak. >You seem, however, to have little appreciation of the situation in which >the average poor slob who is forced to use Ada finds himself. The Ada >compiler he gets to use is just the one provided on the contract by, you >guessed it, the lowest bidder. This is pure nonsense! The choice of compilers was up to Hercules. As far as "poor slobs" go, Jeff and I were members of the team in "the situation", so we certainly couldn't lack appreciation of our own endeavors, could we? Furthermore, this is not the first such project -- we have spent over three years producing just this kind of improvement of the Ada programmer's lot AND the resulting products. >In the same vein, when you attempt to enforce something like Ada upon the >numbers of people involved, you should have some idea of how these >people live; Mr. Holden, see above. >Consider that you will soon have to justify Ada on >a cost basis, and that almost all Ada programmers are contractors... >minor detail worth mentioning. And worth refuting. I can give you the names of program officers who will insist that our methods with Ada reduce life-cycle costs and, more importantly, make possible products that aren't economically possible with any other language. Finally, in this business, contractors are companies; programmers are people. >UNIX, WordPerfect, DBASE-IV, X-11, Quattro, Sprint, News... What if >any million-line projects have actually been successfully implemented in >Ada (without having major language problems in 10% of the code)? I'm sorry, but your insistent mis-interpretation of this reference forces me to expose your unethical methods: I will reproduce several quote form the December 88 "Journal of Electronic Defense" to show that you are attempting to pull quotes out of context to support your position: Moreover, the recent ABICS-3 tests established tha Ada does not impose any significant restraints on system speed specifically when applied to flight-critical avionics. [In the F-15] Ada-based systems were transparent to the aircrew, and match[ed] the performance of standard units programmed in assembly or FORTRAN. ...[using Ada,] an error rate reduction [over other languages] of 25% was experienced after...three projects' worth of experience. More critical errors seem to be found sooner in Ada development than in programs written in other languages. ...as Ada projects get bigger, they get cheaper. So the bottom line is that the much-maligned edict for the use of Ada is now beginning to look like a superb move. The above quotes are from the guest editorial by Hugo Poza on pages 32 and 33. I am assuming, from your use of this issue, that it is unlikely that you would have skipped over these two pages in your search for negative material. If you did indeed miss these and other similar items, then I apologize here and now for condemning your actions, but respectfully suggest that you improve your research methods. Rest assured, however, that I will always respect your opinion of Ada by not inviting you to be on any of my Ada project teams. Enough said. Richard S. D'Ippolito, Project Leader Software Architectures and Design Software Engineering Institute -- When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it. Lord Kelvin rsd@sei.cmu.edu -----------------------------------------------------------------------------