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=1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8a6ea86bcb75690a,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: jamie@dcd00745.slip.digex.net (Jamie Schrumpf) Subject: Ada caused failure of IBM's attempt to redesign air traffic system? Date: 1996/11/16 Message-ID: <56l5s7$699@news4.digex.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 196913886 references: <5573ab$9st@news.ptd.net> <55kotr$k0b@news.ptd.net> <55ktc0$f9b@news2.cais.com> <55kuj0$p6a@news.ptd.net> <178358AF9S86.DLHARM1@ukcc.uky.edu> <55nbnh$6oe@news.ptd.net> <3280BF16.1F34@eurocontrol.fr> <55rjov$gun@news4.digex.net> <560h88$33c_002@billc.nwlink.com> <5614a3$68m@news4.digex.net> <01bbce3a$fbe478e0$1ece77cc@michaelp> <56dfqs$bto@news4.digex.net> <56khk1$4p7@news4.digex.net> organization: Monrovia Communications newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-11-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: This post came from another group, but certainly has bearing here. Can anyone comment on Ted's claim that IBM's failure to redesign the air traffic system was due to Ada? In article <56khk1$4p7@news4.digex.net>, medved@access.digex.net says... > >jamie@dcd00745.slip.digex.net (Jamie Schrumpf) wrote: > > >>>> Instead of counting sheep tonight, try to imagine what it must take >>>> for IBM to walk away from five billion dollars; see how long it >>>> takes you to get to sleep. > >>I didn't get the originial of this, but I think it bears comment nonetheless. > >>I am yet another Ada s/w engineer for the US government... > >Why doesn't that surprise me... > >>and I support a 1 >>meg-lines-o'code mapping workstation for NIMA. There are about 5 different >>systems, including mine, that make up the production system, and only the Ada >>piece works well enough to really be a production-quality system. It does what >>it's supposed to do, and the exception handling is excellent (where it was >>written well, as with all code). > >Ada was originally mandated for all military software projects, and is now being >allowed to quietly fade away and die. Charles Hoare categorized it as an unsafe >language and warned western nations to avoid it in his acceptance speech for >the Turing award in 1980; virtually all large projects which have attempted to >use it have failed on account of it. Gen. Short said that Ada would live or die >with Stanfins; Stanfins died due to Ada. > >A BBS set up to receive recommendations for the next version of Ada received >a major outpouring of real grief from programmers and engineers all over the >country, real reasons why vertually every feature of the language was either >disfunctional of basically indadequate, and real reasons why the language >could not be used for virtually all of its intended purposes. > >Ada used to be one of my causes on the net, but there is no point in beating >dead horses. I hope to see evolution take its place with Ada in the burial >ground of dead sheboleths within the next five years. > >>Ted's claim that IBM walked away from a contract worth $5 billion because it >>had to be written is Ada is false. > >IBM sold the entire Bethesda Md. branch involved in that paroject to Loral, and >then the project was abandoned. Ada was the chief cause of the failure. > > >Ted Holden >medved@digex.com > > > > > > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jamie Schrumpf http://www.access.digex.net/~moncomm "It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it." --- Edmund Way Teale, "Circle of the Seasons"