Re: Is DoD simulation ignoring using Ada?????

[munck@Stars.Reston.Paramax.Com (Bob Munck)]

Gregory Aharonian's keyboard (apparently with little or no guidance
from his brain) said:

>Once again we see the ongoing hypocrisy of the STARS effort - here a
>four page article describing the use of STARS tools on a project
>without mentioning Ada once in the article - more evidence of their
>embarassment of being associated with Ada.

Gee, Greg, we also don't often mention that we all breathe
oxygen-nitrogen mixtures, wear shoes while in the office, and use mice
on the right side of the keyboard.  How about your embarassment with
the kind of computer you use -- you've never once mentioned it.

Consider that what STARS does is concerned with producing reliable and
maintainable software; what alternatives are there to Ada?  Most STARS
people would be quite emphatic in saying "NONE!"  If we do tend to say
less in favor of Ada than most other true believers, it may be because
many of us have been involved the Ada Effort for a very long time (16
years in my case) and are tired of arguing with the infidel.  To us,
the question has been answered and the debate is over; we've gone on
to the next barrier to good software.

We also realize, because we've given it a good deal of thought, that
much of what STARS has produced -- domain engineering, process
modeling and enactment, etc -- is largely independent of programming
language.  If the stuff we're doing could help companies using C,
FORTRAN, APL, or whatever, why go out of our way to give the false
impression that we're entirely dependent on Ada?  When they start
using our results and thinking about their software in terms of
maintainability and reliability, they'll see that Ada is the better
choice for them too.

Bob Munck
not currently wearing shoes