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From: jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)
Subject: Re: (unverified) Ada mandate cancelled (Greg A would be proud)
Date: 1997/03/10
Message-ID: <JSA.97Mar10161514@alexandria>#1/1
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Distribution: world
References: <3.0.32.19970307192557.009979a0@iu.net> <dewar.857857451@merv>
Organization: PSI Public Usenet Link
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-03-10T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <dewar.857914773@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> "preferred technology" agrees with this position. The trouble with
> an absolute mandate, even in the area where it makes best sense,
> i.e.  war-fighting systems in the narrow sense, is that it generates
> antagonism, and worse, it sends a message that Ad is not suitable in
> other areas.

This is an extremely good point and IMO cannot be overemphasized.


> I actually think the NRC report is somewhat flawed in this area. It
> swallows hook, line, and sinker, the salesman's bogus pitch that
> 4GL's can be used for all major informatoin systems development, a
> fallacy that has been understood in IS circles for some time.

Agreed.  Or more likely they just played the ol' "me too! me too!"
game of wanting to look "appropriately" fadish.


[Story of idiot general, snipped]

> When I related this story to several people, they were angry that
> the general in question was "breaking the law". But that is not my
> main concern in such a case. My concern is that here is a case where
> the technical people involved have made a judgment that Ada is the
> best tool, and that judgment was being overridden for non-technical
> reasons with no substance.

Exactly!  The problem isn't about "breaking the law" - forget the law.
The problem here is about being unthinking feckless wanna bes.  This
kind of crap really honks me off - this fool is using _our_ money and
resources to make completely inappropriate decisions based on little
more than "Oh mommy mommy!  Let me play too!" mindlessness.

I say _fire_ this shithead.  If he (or she) is this mindless in making
decisions about this sort of thing, I sure as _hell_ don't want the
fool making any decsions concerning conflict scenarios and life and
death situations.


> This means that in such a case, DoD is ending up with inferior
> systems and not taking advantage of its investment in new
> technology. It is that situation that is most urgent to avoid.

Right.  Only your way of putting it is much too kind and generous.

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
Belmont, MA 02178
617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com