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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c8086456b887be55,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-04-19 11:07:03 PST Path: supernews.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!62.112.0.25!newsfeed.online.be!ams.uu.net!news.mailgate.org!monterey.nps.navy.mil!not-for-mail From: rdriehle@nps.navy.mil ("Riehle, Richard") Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: License to Steal Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 18:06:56 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: monterey.nps.navy.mil Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: news.mailgate.org 987703616 7939 131.120.18.26 (Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:07:03 -0700) X-Complaints-To: monterey.nps.navy.mil@abuse.net abuse@mailgate.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 18:06:56 +0000 (UTC) Mail-From: rdriehle@nps.navy.mil from monterey.nps.navy.mil [131.120.18.26] X-URL: http://www.Mailgate.ORG Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:7008 Date: 2001-04-19T18:06:56+00:00 List-Id: I was recounting the history of Ada for one of my classes at Naval Postgraduate School today. At one point, I came to fact that the original Ada policy had been abrogated. Then I pointed out that, since the abrogation of that policy, I see people using all kinds of new languages. I predicted that over the next few years, we will be right back to the situation that triggered the need for Ada in the first place: a proliferation of programming languages that only a few people know. This is already happening with so-called UDA's, "user defined applications" written in everything from Visual Basic to Perl. UDA's are popping up all over the place in the DoD. Once the person who created the UDA is transferred, no one else knows what to do with it or how to maintain it. Often is unmaintainable because it is in some special version of some special language that is not portable to the next [version of] an operating system upgrade. As I was describing this situation, one of my students said, paraphrasing, "It sounds like cancelling the Ada mandate became a license to steal." Richard Riehle rdriehle@nps.navy.mil richard@adaworks.com http://www.adaworks.com -- Posted from monterey.nps.navy.mil [131.120.18.26] via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG