From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,38cd2874d6e7ac41 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-08-17 08:06:39 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.airnews.net!cabal12.airnews.net!cabal2.airnews.net!news-f.iadfw.net!usenet From: "John R. Strohm" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: On accounting and engineering.(Slightly offtopic) Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 09:53:15 -0500 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America Message-ID: X-Orig-Message-ID: References: <3d5dc21a_2@news.tm.net.my> Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library2.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Sat Aug 17 10:05:43 2002 NNTP-Posting-Host: ![f-:1k-XMk@4le (Encoded at Airnews!) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:28175 Date: 2002-08-17T09:53:15-05:00 List-Id: "Adrian Hoe" 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?