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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,52d2ab9c3dfbc246 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-03-17 16:33:24 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!linus!linus.mitre.org!linus!mbunix!eachus From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Subject: Re: Ada scandal makes front page of Wash. Post business section In-Reply-To: billk@hawk.cs.ukans.edu's message of Fri, 12 Mar 1993 18:06:47 GMT Message-ID: Sender: news@linus.mitre.org (News Service) Nntp-Posting-Host: spectre.mitre.org Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA. References: <335@fedfil.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 23:08:59 GMT Date: 1993-03-17T23:08:59+00:00 List-Id: In article billk@hawk.cs.ukans.edu (Bill Kinnersley) writes: > It seems to me that the easiest way to refute this well-publicized example > is by giving a counterexample. Is there a project that you can point to > a) Of comparable size, complexity and importance > b) Ada was used > c) The programmers were happy > d) The customers were happy > e) Modifications were easily made > f) The project came in on time The FAA tower/terminal upgrade involved the same contractor, the same language, the same tools, and the same client. It was somewhat smaller (one million lines of code vs. 1.5 million) but a significant amount of the code is shared between the two projects. I believe that project meets all of your requirements except f). I'm not sure about completion, but the initial installation was about three weeks late because the FAA wanted to spend some additional time on testing and closing bug reports. (I wasn't there...but I've talked to people who were. I don't question the decision to miss the schedule, but my understanding is that the concern was with "warm fuzzies" rather than any known serious bugs or any found during the testing. It could have been deployed on schedule, but everyone was a lot more cofortable with few more weeks to check things out.)) As I've pointed out elsewhere there are a lot of other ATC systems in Ada, which meet all the criteria except size. (They are about half the size of the US system or smaller.) -- Robert I. Eachus with Standard_Disclaimer; use Standard_Disclaimer; function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...