Re: official recommendations of Ada

[codesavvy@aol.com (codesavvy)]

18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) wrote in message news:<bebbba07.0107162313.66a58a69@posting.google.com>...
> I work in an environment dominated by C/C++, and I would like to
> recommend Ada for a safety-critical application that is about to be
> initiated. 

Excellent, you're probably going to have an incredibly hard sell
because:

1.  There is probably so much legacy C/C++ code around.

2.  Management probably has quite a bit of experience in managing
C/C++ projects.

3.  The developers have a lot of C/C++ experience.

4.  Management probably has little or no experience in managing Ada
development projects.

5.  There are probably at least some developers that are not
experienced with Ada and have a major learning curve to overcome.


From management's view point, using Ada instead of C/C++ is taking a
major risk and when push comes to shove management probably will not
take such a risk unless they can see the "payback" in using Ada.  I'm
sorry but I doubt if management will find papers recommending Ada for
safety critical applications compelling.  Qualitative arguments
regarding the advantages of Ada will probably fall on deaf ears. 
Quantitative arguments regarding productivity advantages have a decent
chance of being received well.  As has been pointed out in another
thread, there has to be a consensus on a metric that measures
productivity effectively.  If there is and management collects the
appropriate data you may convince them to try Ada on some small
project and collect the appropriate data to measure Ada productivity. 
If productivity is not being measured currently I'd start there.  BTW
you do run the risk of being labled a malcontent.  I'd save the $100
unless I was really interested in having the hard copy as a standard.

I think official recommendations of respected standards
> organizations will carry a lot of weight. I came across a reference to
> IEC-1508, for example, which apparently recommends Ada. However, the
> document must be ordered and costs over $100. Yes, I should go ahead
> and get it, but I am wondering if the actual Ada recommendation is
> available online somewhere. Also, does anyone know of other official
> recommendations of Ada over other languages for critical software
> (either online or available through snail-mail)? Thanks.