Re: Interresting thread in comp.lang.eiffel

[swhalen@netcom.com]

In comp.lang.ada Ken Garlington <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote:
: "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@earthlink.net> wrote in message
: news:397A5CB4.AF5F6B8A@earthlink.net...
:> But they were not on contract for the Ariane
:> 5, they were
:> contracted to develop a new IRS for the Ariane 4!

: Bob, could you cite a reference for this? It seems only fair, given that
: I've provided references that describe Sextant as an Ariane *5*
: subcontractor, as well as part of Ariane 4?
[snip]

I've enjoyed following the Ariane 5 discussion as a long time student
of project failures (hoping to learn from and avoid repeating them on
my projects).

While I know nothing of this failure except what I've read here and on
your and other web pages (thanks for providing yours), I have
certainly seen the budget shifting tactics that Robert speaks of.

Given that everyone seems to agree that Ariane 5 was in budget trouble,
I suspect that what Robert says is probably true _and_ there will
probably NOT be the kind of documentation you request. Since the whole
purpose of that kind of budget game playing is to avoid being obvious
about what is really going on (in this case paying for for Ariane 5's
new IRS on Ariane 4's budget) I doubt the documentation will be very
obvious in this area.

Unfortunately Ariane 5 is not the only project that suffered fatal
flaws that can be pretty directly attributed to a shortage of money.

Steve

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                Steve Whalen     swhalen@netcom.com
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