Re: Ada 9X Project Report to the Public

[munck@MBUNIX.MITRE.ORG (Bob Munck)]

Loud applause for the Ada 9X statement of goal:

> The overall goal of the Ada 9X Project is to revise ANSI/MIL-STD-1815A
> to reflect current essential requirements with minimum negative impact
> and maximum positive impact to the Ada community.  The Ada 9X process
> is a revision and not a redesign of the language and should be viewed
> as a natural part of the language maturation process.

However, we already seem to be making a much bigger deal of this than is
healthy.  Remember, to most of the DoD procurement bureaucracy:

          Ada IS STILL A NEW, UNTRIED AND UNPROVEN IDEA!

Their perception could well be that we're "fixing it" because it's
broken, and therefore won't be usable until there are commercial 9X
compilers (if then).  There's real danger that 9X by its very existence
will shoot Ada in the foot.

Moreover, Ada really is "unproven" in some aspects.  No major project
has gone far enough through the maintenance phase to give us even
anecdotal data about maintenance cost savings, and that's the big payoff
we are shooting for.  I don't think we understand maintenance and
enhancement well enough to even have a "gut feeling" that Ada will save
money.  So why are we changing the language so soon?

To be explicit, it seems to me that the whole Requirements Team/Public
Forum/Workshop will be seen to be opening the door for language hackers
making large changes.  The whole process of designing Ada throughout the
70's was a lot of fun for everyone involved; we cannot allow the 9X
effort to be at all similar to that.  It must be strongly disciplined to
make only changes that are absolutely and completely necessary. I
suggest, somewhat satirically, the following rule of thumb:

     "Any change major enough to be understandable by anyone
      other than John Goodenough is too big a change."

Given my druthers, I wouldn't do 9X at all; it's too dangerous.

               -- Bob Munck, MITRE (speaking for myself, as always)