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-Thread: 103376,707ffbf6ec9d1855 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!d98ca94b!not-for-mail From: Joseph Vlietstra Organization: Mojave Systems Corporation User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: SBIRS, Ada and Ignorance References: <20051222102521644-0600@news.airmail.net> <20051222152554655-0600@news.airmail.net> <20051223110200413-0600@news.airmail.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 18:49:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.178.146.100 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net 1135450158 209.178.146.100 (Sat, 24 Dec 2005 10:49:18 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 10:49:18 PST Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:7007 Date: 2005-12-24T18:49:18+00:00 List-Id: Some answers about the SBIRS program. - The SBIRS program was plagued by poor initial systems engineering. Those responsible have been replaced and we were able to get the program somewhat back on track last fall. We can't undo all of the stupid mistakes but I think we can get at least 95% functionality. (The more optimistic think we can score 100%) - Flight software is written in Ada 95 using Rational Apex compiler. The only problems we've had with the development environment were self-induced (e.g., attempting an Apex/ClearCase integration before it was released by Rational). - We considered GNAT at the start of the project and contacted ACT. For whatever reason, they weren't interested in developing a GNAT compiler for us. (I don't think they realized that we would play for the development.) In any case, we're happy with Rational Apex. - We also considered using a GNU C/C++ compiler but it ran slower than the Rational Ada code. This isn't an Ada is faster than C++ claim -- Lockheed-Martin spent a lot of money to have a good Ada compiler available; the C++ compiler was an afterthought for the hardware test group. - There were several subtle hardware glitches that required software fixes. This is a typical problem for a development program. We all learned Chapter 13 of the LRM by heart. Anyone claiming that Ada was the problem is either ignorant of the circumstances or hoping to obscure the initial systems engineering problems. In fact, Ada's language features allowed us to get as far as we have. Joe Vlietstra