Re: Ada scandal makes front page of Wash. Post business section

[emery@dr_no.mitre.org (David Emery)]

<Normally I don't respond to Ted's ravings, but there's a point I'd
 like to make here.>

One of the interesting things we've noticed over the last few years as
our contractors started using Ada is that it's easier to spot
disasters.  It used to be that we wouldn't discover that a program was
totally screwed up until close to delivery.  Now, we can tell pretty
early into the program when it won't make it.  We still don't know
what to do about it, but at least the problems become visible earlier.

In many respects, Ada is to "blame" for this, because Ada makes it
easier to see the design, or lack of design, in the software.  This
isn't just a feature of Ada, but Ada helps significantly.  

The morale of the story is that bad programmers can screw up using any
language.  Ada just makes this more visible.

				dave