Re: Ada used in General Aviation (GA) applications?

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org>]

Anders Wirzenius writes:
> A free (no cost) hint to all vendors ;):
> 1. Start a delivery project and use the
>    programming_language_for_fast_delivery.
> 2. Start a parallel Ada project for the same product.
> 3. Deliver the product from point 1 to the customer.
> 4. While he installs and sets up his test environment, continue with
>    the point 2 project.
> 5. Receive bug reports from the customer.
> 6. Correct the bugs from point 5 and deliver a new version.
> 7. Meanwhile, continue with point 2 project.
> 8. Repeat points 5..7 as many times as you see fit.
> 9. Finally, replace the delivery with the product from point 2.

This is not really a no-cost strategy; it basically acknowledges that
the non-Ada code is to be thrown away.  Engineers working on that code
will rightly feel they are not being recognised, so the quality of the
first project would be abysmal.  This plus the cost of developing the
thing twice is not negligible.

I would prefer an approach where a partial delivery occurs early to
please the customer(s), but this partial delivery would be 100% Ada
and would be partial in functionality, not in quality.

Of course, the vendor ofsuch software needs to educate the customers,
saying "see, this does only part of what you want, but it is so solid
you can entrust your life to it.  The other parts of what you want can
now be implemented quickly and with the same quality level".

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.