CFCSEIC News Briefs, W/E Oct. 24, 1997

[cseic@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us (CSEIC)]

Center for Computer Systems Engineering News Briefs
Week Ending:  October 24, 1997

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FREE PASSES TO TRI-ADA AVAILABLE
Topic:  Ada

The Ada Information Clearinghouse has available a limited number of free 
Tri-Ada '97 "exhibit only" passes to be distributed.  If interested, please 
contact the AdaIC at 800/232-4211 or adainfo@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us.  

The Tri-Ada '97 Conference, the annual meeting of the Ada programming 
world, is meeting at the Adam's Mark Hotel, St. Louis, MO, November 9-13, 
1997.  Keynote Speakers include Lt. Gen. Emmett Paige, Jr., USA (ret.); 
Lt. Col. Drew Hamilton, USMA; Mr. Edward F. Miller, Software Research, 
Inc.; John B. Goodenough, PhD., SEI; and Dr. Charles B. Engle, Jr., 
Q-Labs.  For more information on Tri-Ada '97, contact Tri-Ada '97 
organizers at the following:

TEL:  1-800/338-5365 (USA & Canada only); 1-919/419-8242.
E-MAIL:  mailto:105225.3015@compuserve.com
WEB:  http://www.acm.org/sigada/tri-ada/

SOURCE:  Tri-Ada '97 Advance Program; AdaIC.

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OC SYSTEMS WINS MAJOR SIMULATION TOOLS CONTRACT
Topic:  Ada (From Press Release)

OC Systems, Inc., of Fairfax, VA, has been selected to supply the Ada 
compiler and development environment for the United Kingdom Combined Arms 
Tactical Trainer (UKCATT) program. UKCATT will consist of approximately 
one million lines of Ada code, developed by as many as 100 concurrent 
developers, and is a cooperative effort between the U.S. Department of 
Defense (DOD) and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense (MOD). The 
prime contractor for UKCATT is Lockheed Martin, who selected OC Systems 
as its Ada vendor.

For more information, contact:

OC Systems, Inc., 9990 Lee Highway, Suite 270, Fairfax, VA 22030
tel: 703/359-8160; fax: 703/359-8161; mailto:info@ocsystems.com; 
http://ocsystems.com. 


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NETSCAPE ACQUIRES DOD-WIDE SOFTWARE LICENSE
Topic:  DII, GCCS, GCSS

The DOD licensed Netscape's Communicator client software and five servers to 
enhance security capabilities across DOD networks, according to Netscape 
officials.  For data that needs the highest level of security protection, 
the license includes software that supports DOD's Fortezza hardware 
standard for authentification and encryption.

The licensed products will be used as part of a pilot program to develop 
an infrastructure to secure data in the Global Command and Control System 
(GCCS) and the Global Combat Support System (GCSS).

SOURCE:  Harreld, Heather, "Netscape snares DOD-wide software license," 
Federal Computer Week, October 20, 1997, v11, n33, p. 42.  http://www.fcw.com

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ADA, REUSE AND SAFETY-CRITICAL SOFTWARE
Topic:  Ada, Reuse

In the November/December issue of JOOP, Richard Riehle addresses the 
issues of Ada, software reuse, and safety critical software.  Of Ada, 
Riehle writes that "the safety-critical software industry is just 
discovering Ada.  Ada was designed to explicitly to support the goal of 
safe software.  It is the only ISO language to include a Safety & 
Security Annex (Annex H) as part of it s standard."

Of software reuse, Riehle argues that "genericity represents the highest 
level of reuse followed closely by single inheritance, and then by 
multiple inheritance."  He laments that not all engineers view reuse in 
the same way, which may lead to system performance problems down the road.

SOURCE:  Riehle, Richard, "Reuse, OOP, and Safety-Critical Software," 
Journal of Object-Oriented Programming (JOOP), Nov./Dec. 1997, v10, n7, 
pp. 21-24.

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