Re: Is the Ada World Embarrassed by the Defense Industry?

["Pat Rogers" <progers@NOclasswideSPAM.com>]

"E. Robert Tisdale" <edwin@netwood.net> wrote in message
news:39FDE9E4.35F615A6@netwood.net...
> Ken Garlington wrote:
>
> > While looking at the SIGAda 2000 web site,
> > I notice that the role of Ada in defense applications is minimized
> > (even after the explicit requirements in this area were dropped).
> > For example, the list of "recent" successful Ada-based systems
> > includes only commercial projects, some five years old,
> > although one of the most recent Ada success stories occurred
> > just a few days ago (October 24).  I also notice that
> > an interview last year with Tucker Taft included the statement,
> > "These days we're focused mostly on commercial success stories..."
> > I can understand wanting to promote commercial applications,
> > but isn't this going a little overboard?
>
> Apparently, national defense, and the U.S. Navy in particular,
> has finally turned toward Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS)
> solutions after encouraging a commercial computer industry
> for the past 50 years.

The DoD is institutionally clueless about software development.  (Oh
sure there are plenty of bright, capable people involved; but as an
organization it is lost.)  They went from a simple language policy
("use Ada for the things that make sense") to a laughable one that
requires good will on the part of their contractors ("do a reasonable
language trade-off study including Ada").  What a sad joke!

> It is possible to implement reliable applications
> in other programming languages through diligence,
> discipline and exhaustive testing.  It just costs more.
> One can only assume that the commercial developer
> weighed these costs against all of the other costs
> relevant to application program development when
> they decided which programming language(s) to use.

ROTFL

Thanks -- that (and the lack of a smiley) made my day!

> The problem for the military
> is to test and evaluate all of these applications
> and select the best value.
>
> If application program source codes are transferred
> to the military, they must find and/or train programmers
> to modify and maintain that source code.
> It is easier to find and train C and C++ programmers
> than it is to find and train Ada programmers today
> so there is a strong incentive to prefer C or C++ over Ada.

References please, otherwise this propagates myth.  IMHO training Ada
people is easy.  Finding good Ada people is easy if you pay well.

> A lot can be done to incorporate safety and reliability
> into C and C++ compilers and class libraries
> but these languages are inherently unsafe
> and there is very little that can be done about it
> without changing the languages themselves.

I don't see how the first part of that sentence agrees with the last.
(And I agree with the last part.)

---
Patrick Rogers                      Consulting and Training in:
http://www.classwide.com      Deadline Schedulability Analysis
progers@classwide.com        Software Fault Tolerance
(281)648-3165                       Real-Time/OO Languages

Adam ... does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the
first woman, and Satan, the first consultant.
Mark Twain