SEIC News, W/E Jan. 24, 1997

SEIC News, W/E Jan. 24, 1997

[SEIC]

Software Engineering News Brief
Week Ending January 24, 1997

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AJPO ANNOUNCES NEW CHIEF
Topic:  Ada

Lieutenant Colonel John A. (Drew) Hamilton, Jr., US Army, has been 
announced as the new Chief of the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO).  The 
Lieutenant Colonel is replacing Dr. Charles B. Engle, Jr., who has moved 
back to the private sector.

LTC Hamilton completed his PhD. in Computer Science at Texas A&M 
University and was assigned to the Department of Electrical Engineering 
and Computer Science at the U.S. Military Academy from which he is now on 
hiatus.  Previously he served as the Chief, Officer Training Division at the 
Computer Science School, Fort Gordon, GA.  LTC Hamilton has a B.A. in 
Journalism from Texas Tech University, where he was commissioned in 
Field Artillery, an M.S. in Systems Management from the University of 
Southern California and an M.S. in Computer Science from Vanderbilt 
University.  

In addition to his current role as AJPO Chief, he has also served the 
AJPO as a member of the Ada Software Engineering Education Team.

SOURCE:  AJPO

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YORK COLLEGE ADA 95 COURSEWARE AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET
Topic: Ada

Since 1992, the Department of Defense has supported efforts to encourage 
development of undergraduate and graduate courses in Ada and software 
engineering.  The most recent effort was supported by the Defense 
Information Systems Agency's Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO), in which 
educators were awarded contracts for developing Ada 95 Courseware.

The latest Ada Courseware project to be made available on the Internet, 
"From Pascal to Ada 95:  An Introduction By Examples," was developed by 
Dr. T.C. Wu of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at 
York College/CUNY.  The result of this project is a two-course sequence 
in Ada and Software Engineering for Information Systems Management 
majors.

The York College Project is available on the Ada Information Clearinghouse 
WWW site at: 
<http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/AdaIC/ed-train/baa/Pascal2Ada95>.

Additional University Ada Courseware can be accessed through the 
AdaIC WWW pages at: 
<http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/AdaIC/ed-train/baa/baa95crs.shtml>.  

SOURCE:  AJPO

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MOSEMANN ENTERS GCN HALL OF FAME
Topic: Reuse

Lloyd K. Mosemann II, who spent nearly four decades working to improve 
software development and use within the Department of Defense (DoD), is the 
newest member of the Government Computer News' Hall of Fame.  At the 
awards ceremony Mosemann said he was beginning to see some of his 
predictions about software reuse coming true.

In the 1980's, Mosemann recalled saying, "If there is a silver bullet for 
software in the 1990's, that silver bullet will be reuse."  But as years 
passed and reuse was on the back burner at the DoD, Mosemann said he 
began to think he might have missed the mark.

But as economics demanded improvements in software processes, it wasn't
possible for the Pentagon and services agencies to build custom systems 
from scratch.  Instead, it became necessary to reuse existing code 
combined with off-the-shelf packages to keep costs down.

Mosemann, who retired January 1996, said of the award, "It's truly nice 
to be both gone and not forgotten."

SOURCE:  Government Computer News, November 4, 1996, v15 n28 p61(1).

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IS JAVA A DIALECT OF ADA?
Topic:  Ada

Ada programmers listened politely last month, at the TRI-Ada Conference 
in Philadelphia, PA, to Ken Arnold of Sun Microsystems' JavaSoft Inc. as 
he described the Defense Department-sponsored Ada language as "the 110 
percent solution."  The commercial market doesn't accept such 
complexity, he said.

Arnold referred to Java as "a dialect of Ada."  Contradicting popular 
impressions of Java as an applet language, Arnold said Java has been used 
in five mission-critical applications of a half-million lines each.

Tucker Taft, the lead designer of Ada 95 and chief scientist at 
Intermetrics Inc., agreed that Java "is a pretty impressive success 
story," with a lot of features that make programs reliable.

SOURCE:  Government Computer News, January 13, 1997, v16 n1 p4.

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