DoD dumps mainframe for PC network using C software

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

    [From the Sept 13 issue of Government Computer News, page 77, excerpts]
    [Another account of Pentagon units violating federal Mandate law]

   Client-server computing has matured enough for Defense Department officials
to begin using it in two systems that manage standardized documents at sites
across the United States and in 34 other nations.

   Thomas Ballantine, automation program manager in the Office of Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics, said the two systems are
part of a four system configuration for disseminating draft specifications
for review, receiving the comments and coordinating about 50,000 specification
documents.  The two systems support DoD standards under CALS, including SGML,
CGM and IGES.  One systems was built from scratch, the other migrated from a
mainframe system put into service in the 1970s.

   The Acquisition Streamlining and Standardization Electronic Transfer
System (ASSETS) is a multi-user, dial-up, on-line, integrated system for
authoring and editing.  The other client-server system, the Acquisition
Streamlining and Standardization Information SysTem (ASSIST) was ported from
a mainframe.

   ASSETS runs on a 66-MHz 486 with 31 "slave" boards, using Novell software,
Santa Cruz Open Desktop, and Alloy's LinkPC communications software.  ASSIST
runs on two 33-MHz 486 servers running SCO Unix, using Oracle's SQL packages,
Oracle Pro/C programming language, and PL/SQL.

   [..... other details about the systems and their successful development]

==============================================================================

   Here we see why Ada is in so much trouble, when an office deep in the
Pentagon can develop two large, heavily used systems using C-based COTS
software and C-based application development.  This system could have been
done in Ada, had they cared and respected the Ada Mandate.  Instead, it was
done in C, and publicized in Government Computer News, where non-Mandated
people will read it and have their suspicions (right or wrong) reaffirmed,
that the DoD just does not care about Ada except for large, embedded projects.
   Where the Mandate says "all DoD software", Congress meant ALL.
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian                                      srctran@world.std.com
 Source Translation & Optimization                            617-489-3727
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178