Re: AAS, was it Ada? Cleanroom?

[bn@alsys.com (Brian Nettleton @pulsar)]

I worked on AAS for over 3 years (the division of IBM which held the
contract was sold to Loral during that time) as a software engineer.  
The original AAS contract with IBM has been cancelled and replaced
with a new program called DSR (Display System Replacement).  DSR is
re-using most of the software (design and code) from AAS which is
applicable.  Ada was certainly not at fault for the problems on AAS.  I
can't think of anyone actually familiar with the project who blames
Ada.  In fact anyone who says "The problem on AAS was X" doesn't know
what they are talking about.  AAS had a multitude of problems ranging
from changing specifications to congressional meddling (the original
consolidation of certain facilities within the FAA proved to be politically
unacceptable) to grandiose expectations (it proved to be impractical to
build a system with only 3 seconds of downtime per year).

The new DSR has dramatically reduced the scope of the original AAS
contract.  Last I heard (January) the system was on schedule and maybe
even a week or so ahead of schedule.

Also a smaller version of the AAS project was sold and delivered to
Taiwan and is soon to be in operation (may already be in operation?).


In <199604260127.VAA10999@bb.iu.net> "Sam Harbaugh (AQ)" <harbaugh@ACUSYS.COM> writes:

>Nancy posted a brief statement on the incose (international council on
>systems engineering) bb that AAS was an almost complete waste of 6 billion
>dollars.  I asked her to elaborate and below is her reply.

>I recall seeing an IBM exhibit at either a Tri-Ada or IITSC conference ( I
>can't  remember which).  The person showing the large round display was very
>zealous about the system.  I looked closely and saw that the display
>contained many repetions of the same aircraft.  When I pointed it out he
>mumbled and started talking to someone else.  It would have made a good
>Dilbert cartoon.

Round display?  The existing system in use today uses round displays.  The
new AAS/DSR system uses large square displays.  Anyway most demo's of the 
system used canned data that may well have had the same aircraft duplicated.


>So, was AAS Ada? It sounds like software was not the problem, I'm just
>curious about the language.

AAS was written in Ada.  Again Ada was not a problem on AAS.  Certainly
the project was large enough to find compiler/tool bugs, but these were
never of a nature to justify the kind of schedule problems AAS ran into.


>Was AAS cleanroom design?  Again it doesn't sound like software design was
>the problem, again I'm just curious.

AAS did not use cleanroom.


>Is Nancy off base with her comments?

Most of Nancy's comments were are fairly accurate, except that the
system has not been thrown away, but rather scaled down.  While the
new system will provide much the same support as exists in the field
today, it will install a platform which provides for expansion in the
future.  Hindsight being 20/20 this is probably what should have been
done in the first place, instead of trying to bite everything off at
once.



>sam harbaugh
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Brian Nettleton

Opinions are my own, not Thomson Software Products, IBM's, nor Loral's.