From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_40 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 4 Jun 93 17:10:33 GMT From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!nic.umass.edu!ymir.cs.umass.edu !rcfnews!sandy@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Sandy Wise) Subject: Re: Data shows Top 50 Software Vendors not using Ada Message-ID: List-Id: In article srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes: > You know, one of the most obnoxious conceits of the Defense > world is that it has the worst real time, fault tolerant, large > scale computing problems. There are plenty of industries using the > tools and products of the 50 companies I listed whose problems are > just as bad as the DoD's. There are organizations outside the Pentagon with mission-critical software systems out there, but the Pentagon's systems are life-critical. Failing to make a trade or double-booking a seat on an airplane just isn't in the same class... To compare apples to apples you need to talk about patient monitoring, railroad signalling, or something... > Consider Wall Street. Their systems can't break down during the > trading day, their algorithms have to handle all market exceptions, > etc. Which of course explains why the SEC shuts down programmed trading whenever the market acts up. And of course there was a recent incedent where the market management software failed and trading had to be done with paper records. Might not have happened if... > How about airlines. A few months ago, Business Week had a glowing > article about Smalltalk,in which a large Smalltalk system developed > by American Airlines handles their daily scheduling activities. > Screw up one connection, How about airlines. The new ATC system is being written in... Boeing is writing the flight software for its new passenger aircraft in... The phone systems - real time, high throughput, even help fight a few wars with the DoD - all done in C. Remember the invasion of Grenada? Remember the Northeast long-distance blackout? It was directly attributed to the semantics of 'break'. /s -- Alexander Erskine Wise /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Software Development Laboratory /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ WISE@CS.UMASS.EDU /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\ This situation calls for large amounts of unadulterated CHOCOLATE! /\/\/\