From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.5 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_05,FROM_ADDR_WS autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 8 Jul 93 05:46:09 GMT From: munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!navy.mil.nz!waikato!jolse@uunet.uu.net (Jam es Olsen) Subject: Re: Admiral Tuttle Message-ID: List-Id: 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? ---------------------------------------------------- James Olsen, Lt RNZN email: jolse@dswe.navy.mil.nz telephone: +64-4-4960-725 facsimile: +64-4-4960-311 ---------------------------------------------------- My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer ----------------------------------------------------