Re: On accounting and engineering.(Slightly offtopic)

["John R. Strohm" <strohm@airmail.net>]

"Adrian Hoe" <mailbox@*nospam*adrianhoe.com> wrote in message
news:3d5dc21a_2@news.tm.net.my...
> The major issue is $$$. Accountants are more interested in RoI (Return
> of Investment), depreciation (software?) and etc. When I proposed to
> my company to switch to Ada many years ago, the first question was
> "What will be the RoI and benefits over development cost if we switch
> to Ada?"

That's where you whip out a few PowerPoint charts.  Start with the one
headed "Pratt&Whitney", with the two bullets "2X increase in programmer
productivity" and "4X DECREASE in defect density".

> Other issues will be like the cost of training and development and
> maintenance cost which cannot be estimated as the company has not yet
> established/experienced any track records using the new tool (Ada,
> could be).

There, you whip out the chart, straight from AdaIC, that points out that
competent programmers typically need two weeks of training and they are up
and running in Ada.

> Of course, one cannot compare Ada to other programming languages as if
> rackmount servers to beige case systems. Programming language is more
> abstract and non-tangible (as per Accounting terms) compare to
> hardware. I met a stupid accountant some time ago. He set 20%
> depreciation rate to software. Imagine that?!

That is probably not unreasonable.  Are you going to use that same software
for more than 5 years?  Or are you going to upgrade or replace it?