Ada downsizing in space

Ada downsizing in space

[R. B. Love]

It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular 
after all" but local events make me think other wise.

I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one of 
the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several 
nations writing Ada.  NASA has decreed that there must be a 15% 
reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff 
notices going to between 140 and 180 people.  A good many of them are 
Ada programmers.

All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++.  LockMart, the same 
people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on SBIRS, 
seems determined to make everything C++.

Now some of us will be employed for years maintaining existing ISS 
code.  The transition from development to maintanence had to come 
someday.

It would be very interesting to hear about new, large Ada projects 
anywhere.   Does someone still maintain a list?

If anyone is hiring Ada programmers, I expect your recruiting dollars 
would go far  in Houston.

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[Jeffrey Creem]

R. B. Love wrote:
> It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular 
> after all" but local events make me think other wise.
> 
> I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one of 
> the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several 
> nations writing Ada.  NASA has decreed that there must be a 15% 
> reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff 
> notices going to between 140 and 180 people.  A good many of them are 
> Ada programmers.


Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada. NASA appears 
to have abandoned Ada around 10 years ago (That is not to say that 
nothing was being done in Ada -- just most high visibility things that 
you'd hear about were not done in Ada). I think it was part of their 
Better, Faster, Cheaper (Choose any 0 of them) plan.

> 
> All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++.  LockMart, the same 
> people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on SBIRS, 
> seems determined to make everything C++.

Sounds about right http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/40968_us.html

> 
> Now some of us will be employed for years maintaining existing ISS 
> code.  The transition from development to maintanence had to come someday.
> 
> It would be very interesting to hear about new, large Ada projects 
> anywhere.   Does someone still maintain a list?
> 

The old list stopped being updated.
Boeing appears to at least maintain some interest in Ada as the C-130 
and 7E7 announcements indicate.

Since Ada is no longer "buzzword compliant" I don't think (most) people 
using it are really into press release engineering anymore.


> If anyone is hiring Ada programmers, I expect your recruiting dollars 
> would go far  in Houston.
> 

We almost never hire "Ada" programmers even for Ada jobs. It is true 
that someone who is a great software engineer and knows Ada really well 
is a great asset to have on a project but in general, I tend to care 
more about finding great software engineers (which are hard to find) 
more than finding someone that worked someplace where they used Ada 
(which is not as hard to find as people think).

Of course if starting a new team on a new project, it would be a mistake 
to not have a few people with a solid Ada background.

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[R.B. Love]

On 2007-02-18 08:58:33 -0600, Jeffrey Creem <jeff@thecreems.com> said:

> R. B. Love wrote:
>> It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular 
>> after all" but local events make me think other wise.
>> 
>> I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one of 
>> the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several 
>> nations writing Ada.  NASA has decreed that there must be a 15% 
>> reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff 
>> notices going to between 140 and 180 people.  A good many of them are 
>> Ada programmers.
> 
> 
> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.

Well, as I said, I expect to remain hired for 5 years maintaining that 
Ada software that makes up the ISS.  Let me see, there are between 
45-50 flight computers on board the ISS on various US components.  They 
are all programmed in Ada.   I believe the Russian flight computers use 
C.  The onboard, hand held PCs are mostly C/Linux.  The large trainers 
for ISS use Ada almost exclusively.  That was another 1-2 dozen 
programmers.  Some of the foreign trainers use Ada.


> NASA appears to have abandoned Ada around 10 years ago (That is not to 
> say that nothing was being done in Ada -- just most high visibility 
> things that you'd hear about were not done in Ada). I think it was part 
> of their Better, Faster, Cheaper (Choose any 0 of them) plan.

ISS was under way before then.



> 
>> 
>> All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++.  LockMart, the same 
>> people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on SBIRS, 
>> seems determined to make everything C++.
> 
> Sounds about right http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/40968_us.html

This requires a login so I can't see it.  Care to summarize?

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[Jeffrey Creem]

R.B. Love wrote:
> On 2007-02-18 08:58:33 -0600, Jeffrey Creem <jeff@thecreems.com> said:
> 
>> R. B. Love wrote:
>>> It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular 
>>> after all" but local events make me think other wise.
>>>
>>> I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one 
>>> of the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several 
>>> nations writing Ada.  NASA has decreed that there must be a 15% 
>>> reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff 
>>> notices going to between 140 and 180 people.  A good many of them are 
>>> Ada programmers.
>>
>>
>> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.
> 
> Well, as I said, I expect to remain hired for 5 years maintaining that 
> Ada software that makes up the ISS.  Let me see, there are between 45-50 
> flight computers on board the ISS on various US components.  They are 
> all programmed in Ada.   I believe the Russian flight computers use C.  
> The onboard, hand held PCs are mostly C/Linux.  The large trainers for 
> ISS use Ada almost exclusively.  That was another 1-2 dozen 
> programmers.  Some of the foreign trainers use Ada.
> 

Actually that is good to know. Your original e-mail led me to believe 
that you were involved in Ada but it was not clear that you knew for 
sure that other projects on ISS were Ada.

> 
>> NASA appears to have abandoned Ada around 10 years ago (That is not to 
>> say that nothing was being done in Ada -- just most high visibility 
>> things that you'd hear about were not done in Ada). I think it was 
>> part of their Better, Faster, Cheaper (Choose any 0 of them) plan.
> 
> ISS was under way before then.

Obviously I should have considered that!

> 
> 
> 
>>
>>>
>>> All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++.  LockMart, the 
>>> same people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on 
>>> SBIRS, seems determined to make everything C++.
>>
>> Sounds about right http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/40968_us.html
> 
> This requires a login so I can't see it.  Care to summarize?
> 
> 

Interesting. I did not login to see it and don't have an account. I went 
back and could still get there. I use firefox with Javascript disabled 
and in that mode, you can actually see the article without logging in. 
Didn't realize I was such a talented script kiddie :)

In any case, it was just a link to an article talking about the latest 
LockMart JSF schedule slip. They do like to trash Ada (and occasionally 
open source...Though they seem to be like the rest of the Defense 
contractors and unsure if they love it or Hate it). No wonder things 
keep slipping...

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[Björn Persson]

Jeffrey Creem wrote:

> I use firefox with Javascript disabled
> and in that mode, you can actually see the article without logging in.

Haha! Client-side access control. Just wonderful!

> Didn't realize I was such a talented script kiddie :)

I think "noscript kiddie" would be a more appropriate term. ;-)

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                   omb jor ers @sv ge.
                   r o.b n.p son eri nu

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[Ed Falis]

Jeffrey Creem wrote:

> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.

Yes. Or at least I can't believe they rewrote all the code they wrote
(often using code-generation tools) for the MDM's.

- Ed

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[R. B. Love]

On 2007-02-18 19:13:47 -0600, Ed Falis <falis@verizon.net> said:

> Jeffrey Creem wrote:
> 
>> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.
> 
> Yes. Or at least I can't believe they rewrote all the code they wrote
> (often using code-generation tools) for the MDM's.

Regarding code generation, I know that MatrixX was used for part of the 
GNC MDMs.  The CMG control logic was designed by Huntington Beach and 
autocode was created.  The navigation and monitoring code was written 
by hand in Houston.  Guess which one is readable?

"autocode" vs "intermediate code"

[Stephen Leake]

R. B. Love <rblove@airmail.net> writes:

> On 2007-02-18 19:13:47 -0600, Ed Falis <falis@verizon.net> said:
>
>> Jeffrey Creem wrote:
>>
>>> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.
>> Yes. Or at least I can't believe they rewrote all the code they wrote
>> (often using code-generation tools) for the MDM's.
>
> Regarding code generation, I know that MatrixX was used for part of
> the GNC MDMs.  The CMG control logic was designed by Huntington Beach
> and autocode was created.  The navigation and monitoring code was
> written by hand in Houston.  Guess which one is readable?

I assume the Ada original source for the navigation and monitoring
code is more readable than the Ada intermediate code for the GNC. But
that's like saying the assembly intermediate code for the navigation
is not as readable as the assembly original source for some core
floating point function.

Using the term "code generation" instead of "compiled to intermediate
code" is misleading. It is more appropriate to say the GNC code was
written in MatrixX, and Ada was just an intermediate language on the
way to machine code.

The proper question is whether the Ada original source for the
navigation is more readable than the MatrixX original source for the
GNC. For myself, I find most MatrixX (and Matlab Simulink) source to
be hard to read, so I would probably find the Ada code more readable.
But some people prefer the graphical languages of MatrixX and
Simulink; I assume that's why they used it.

A related question is whether you can still buy support for the Ada
compiler and the MatrixX compiler. MatrixX went out of business; is
the Ada vendor used for ISS still in business?

And how many MatrixX or Simulink programmers can you find on the
market? I bet it's far fewer than Ada programmers. Yet no manager
would hesitate to allow Simulink source on their project, because it's
the "in" thing.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Ada downsizing in space

[Ed Falis]

R. B. Love wrote:
> Guess which one is readable?

No question here.  Oink Oink went the autocode as it passed through the
compiler.

Re: "autocode" vs "intermediate code"

[Ed Falis]

Stephen Leake wrote:

> A related question is whether you can still buy support for the Ada
> compiler and the MatrixX compiler. MatrixX went out of business; is
> the Ada vendor used for ISS still in business?

Guess you'd have to ask Wind River about MatrixX, since ISI bought the
tool, and was later bought by WRS.  Ask Aonix about the compiler - it
was developed by Alsys.

Re: "autocode" vs "intermediate code"

[Robert A Duff]

Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> writes:

> The proper question is whether the Ada original source for the
> navigation is more readable than the MatrixX original source for the
> GNC.

Another proper question is: To what extent does one need to look at the
generated Ada code for analysis/understanding/debugging/etc?
If the answer is "not at all", then you don't need to care how
readable the Ada code is.  I don't know anything about MatrixX...

- Bob

Re: "autocode" vs "intermediate code"

[Britt Snodgrass]

On Feb 20, 9:41 am, Ed Falis <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Stephen Leake wrote:
> > A related question is whether you can still buy support for the Ada
> > compiler and the MatrixX compiler. MatrixX went out of business; is
> > the Ada vendor used for ISS still in business?
>
> Guess you'd have to ask Wind River about MatrixX, since ISI bought the
> tool, and was later bought by WRS.  Ask Aonix about the compiler - it
> was developed by Alsys.

MatrixX is now owned and marketed by National Instruments (http://
www.ni.com/matrixx/).  I haven't used any recent versions but in the
early 1990's MatrixX/SystemBuild was a much better product than Matlab/
Simulink. I think MatrixX is still available with the Ada code
generation option but a similar option was dropped from Matlab/
Simulink a few years ago (presumably due to lack of demand).

-- Britt

Re: "autocode" vs "intermediate code"

[Upkeep]

On Feb 20, 3:21 pm, Stephen Leake wrote:
> A related question is whether you can still buy support for the Ada
> compiler and the MatrixX compiler.

As for MATRIXx, the answer probably is Yes - see http://www.ni.com/matrixx/
(and its AutoCode still supports Ada, see http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3704
)

Re: "autocode" vs "intermediate code"

[Ed Falis]

Britt Snodgrass wrote:

> MatrixX is now owned and marketed by National Instruments (http://
> www.ni.com/matrixx/).  I haven't used any recent versions but in the
> early 1990's MatrixX/SystemBuild was a much better product than
> Matlab/
> Simulink. I think MatrixX is still available with the Ada code
> generation option but a similar option was dropped from Matlab/
> Simulink a few years ago (presumably due to lack of demand).

Glad to hear it's still around.  A mighty amount of work went into its
development, from what I heard.

- Ed