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=3.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,INVALID_DATE, LOTS_OF_MONEY,TO_NO_BRKTS_PCNT,T_MONEY_PERCENT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1dafb8609f084358,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-12-27 13:28:55 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: nntp.gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Superconducting Ada compilers ? Message-ID: Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 14:47:21 GMT Date: 1994-12-27T14:47:21+00:00 List-Id: Superconducting Ada compilers? Sounds like a dumb way for the DoD to invest its money, which fortunately the DoD isn't doing. But just as dumb is the following announcement: "Superconductor Technologies (Santa Barbara, CA) has been granted a $1.9 million contract from the Naval Research Laboratory to develop and evaluate cyro-cooled SPARC workstations. Superconductor Technologies will work with Sun Microsystems, Ross Technologies and nCHIP to develop the workstation". Can't the DoD find a better way to invest taxpayer's dollars? The workstation industry is highly competitive with billions of dollar of private investment already exploring many ways to improve workstations for both public and government use. If this idea (super-cooled workstations) makes any economic sense, I am sure one or more of the companies (especially some of the Japanese companies, which have access to government funds for applied cyrogenics) would do so, and the DoD wouldn't have to waste precious bodily fluids (i.e. money). Instead, the DoD could take the $1.9 million dollars and have one of their contractors find out the most important bit of information that affects the $20 billion DoD software development budget (or they could give me $190,000): WHAT PERCENT OF THE DOD IS USING ADA ??????? Fifteen years into Ada, hundreds of millions spent on Ada policy management and research projects, estimates of over 50% of the DoD not using Ada, and no one in this country in and out of the military knows this figure. With this figure, and the project set up to calculate it, which can be used to track this figure in each succeeding year with little effort, the DoD would have a very powerful tool to determine how (in)effective its Ada policies are. Measuring such fundamental numbers is at the heart of scientific analysis of the type that Edmonds keeps on talking about. But noooooooo, the DoD would rather develop a superconducting workstation, probably with a follow on contract to develop a superconducting Ada compiler*. Either take the Ada Mandate seriously and manage it properly, or drop it. But to continue to spend tens of millions of dollars without honestly knowing the effectiveness of such policies is a violation of the taxpayer's trust. WHAT PERCENT OF THE DOD IS USING ADA ??????? Greg Aharonian * Maybe the DoD will have the Army develop superconducting versions of their new object oriented languages to be used with the Air Force's non-Ada AI CASE environments on the Navy's superconducting workstations to take advantage of all of ARPA's cutting edge non-Ada software technology while DISA figures out how to keep entrepreneurs out of next year's Ada Summit and keep Ada out of the SBIRs.