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From: mjsilva@my-deja.com
Subject: Re: Ada student homework ?
Date: 2000/11/10
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Date: 2000-11-10T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <3A0B68EF.A06B276D@ix.netcom.com>,
  Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> I am currently watching with amusement as hordes of otherwise
intelligent
> programmers are forced to learn C++, when Ada is already in place.
One
> prominent member of the DoD software community said to me
recently, "We have
> all this legacy Ada code that we need to port to Java technology."
He is
> making his decision on the recommendation of someone who, in my
opinion,
> is not experienced enough in Ada or C++ to make such a judgement.
Another
> said, "In my last command they told me that Ada was pretty much dead
since
> the mandate went away."
>
> Meanwhile, C++, a language which can best be characterized as "its own
> virus,"  is being stuffed down the intellectual maw of a lot of
programmers
> who already know Ada 83 and need only to be updated on the technology
> of the current standard.   Transitioning good Ada to C++ is so silly
that it
> defies belief.
>
> The result will be more incidents such as the USS Yorktown, dead in
the water
> from a software flaw originating in code written in C.    I find it
scary that we
> plan to send our young men into battle depending on software created
with the
> most error-prone programming language ever invented. Who will take
the final
> responsibility for this folly once the finger-pointing begins?

As someone looking at all this from the outside I am just amazed.
Moving critical projects from one of the safest languages available to
some of the most unsafe languages is progress?!  There are plenty of
warnings in e.g. NASA's and DoD's own literature against using these
unsafe languages in critical work, but the march goes on.  Is anybody
minding the store?  Are we heading for another critical-systems
software crisis as these systems get delivered, modified and variously
hammered on?

Mike


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