Re: Admiral Tuttle

[munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!navy.mil.nz!waikato!jolse@uunet.uu.net (Jam es Olsen)]

In article 4738@oracorp.com, davidg@oracorp.com (David Guaspari) writes:

>The following  is  an excerpt from Adm. Tuttle's remarks at the Second Annual
>SEW  Technical  Conference  on 4 May 1993...
>
>We should  reexamine  our software policies and standards with a view toward
>removal  of  impediments to the use of the best current industrial tools and
>practices.

It has been my experience that the problem with adoption of tools (lower-case
anyway) is brought about by the Ada library mechanism.  A standard set of tools
I have will work fine with most languages such as C, FORTRAN, Pascal etc but wi
ll
not operate with Ada because of those strange things I know nothing about that 
the
compiler stores away in hidden files.

Ada development however does still follow the author, compile, link process.
What about doing away with the afore-to-mentioned funny bits and just
treating the code like you would for any other language?  Or am I being too nai
ve,
will this cause even longer compile times?  Comments please.

>Our single
>chosen  language,  ADA  has not evolved, and cannot evolve rapidly enough to
>provide timely access to the best new methods.

I recently read a description of Ada9X and personally believe you'd have to be
mad to use anything else.  Perhaps I've been maintaining other peoples non-Ada
code too long.  I can wait till end of 94.

>Secondly, I  have  recommended to the Chief of Naval Research a focus in the
>computer  technology techbase on technologies directed toward specifying and
>producing correct, supportable and timely software.  As most costly software
>faults are introduced during specification and early design, I have selected
>this phase of development for special early emphasis.

Great!  Specify it then write it in the most appropriate language.  Sometimes
Ada.

>Once available,  these  specification  languages  --  automated verification
>tools  --  and  advanced  prototyping  techniques  must be made available to
>software  developers.  These new methods and the COTS software that supports
>them must be fully supported in policy and procedure.

Are we going to mandate specification languages now?  This hasn't been very
successful for programming languages.

If Ada needs better tool support then let's make it easier to do.  As I said
before, most of my tools don't care what language they're working with unless
it's Ada - Can this be changed?

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James Olsen, Lt RNZN   email: jolse@dswe.navy.mil.nz
telephone: +64-4-4960-725  facsimile: +64-4-4960-311
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My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer
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