Re: AIA Position on Ada

[Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu>]

From: Richard Riehle
Subject: AIA Position on Ada


The AIA position is long on text and short on insight.  There is no
good reason for the DoD to abandon its current Ada policy.  It is
reminiscent of "sound and fury" but adds up to not much in substance.

 1) The single-language policy along with a set of properly administered
    waiver procedures is still correct.

 2) No one has yet made the case, nor can they make the case, that some
    class of software problems cannot be solved in Ada.  In fact, Ada
    has now been used successfully for nearly every kind of application,
    on nearly every operating system and and hardware platform in
    existence.

 3) The burden of proof should be on those who insist Ada cannot do the
    job, not the other way around.

 4) This is exactly the wrong time to abandon Ada policy. With the
    increasing disaffection with C++ and no other serious language
    (except, perhaps Eiffel) coming close to Ada, why would the DoD
    take such a major risk.

 5) "sound and fury," indeed!


  Richard Riehle