Office Naval Research seemingly not interested in Ada

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

   I recently came across an ONR report on a "Workshop in Experimental
Computer Science" held in Palo Alto in Ocotober 1991.  ONR sponsored the
workshop, with the help of ARPA and the NSF. The report I read was 49
pages, and covered an equal mix of state of the art research in hardware
design and software design.

   Nowhere did I see Ada mentioned in the proceedings.  Nowhere.  Given
the nature of the workshop, and the central role of Ada in all future
DoD software efforts, the ONR should have insured that Ada was discussed
in the context of the workshop.  It wasn't because they didn't.
   Interestingly, there was 5 representatives from the computer science
efforts at Carnegie Mellon University (where much advanced software and
hardware is done), and none from their 'buddies' across the street at
the Software Engineering Institute.  Why SEI has never been able to work
with CMU is a tragedy - imagine if MACH was being developed in Ada.
(I guess the hostility gossip must be true.)
   Anyways, the ONR dropped the ball here on promoting Ada with its own
money, and apparently with Pentagon approval - more of the "don't ask -
don't tell" toleration of Mandate violations.
   Two DoD people participated - Gary Koob at the NRL (koob@itd.nrl.navy.mil)
and Stephen Squires at DARPA (squires@darpa.mil).  You might want to email
these guys and find out what's up.
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178