The Mandate does apply to research software

The Mandate does apply to research software

[Gregory Aharonian]

    Recently Mike posted some Air Force and Navy statements dictating how
to implement the Ada Mandate, with all types of exceptions, and rather
dubois use of life-cycle cost justifications.  Be that as it may, look
at what Congress originally said:

	"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after June 1,
	 1991, all Department of Defense software shall be written
	 in the programming language Ada, in the absence of special
	 exemption by an official designated by the Secretary of
	 Defense."

    Both from a propositional and predicate logic point of view, and from
the point of view of intepretation of Congressional regulations, the
phrase "all DoD software" means just that - all DoD software.
    Now when Congress passed this, it was well aware that the DoD does
much research (for example the funds that go to ARPA).  So it's hard to
conclude that when Congress was unaware of DoD software research when it
passed the Mandate.  Thus either the intent of Congress was for the Mandate
to apply to DoD research and MIS stuff, as well as the embedded stuff, or
somewhere in the Congressional minutes or appropriations papers, there is
some language describing Congress's intent on how to implement the Mandate
within the DoD, from which the Air Force and the Navy could have drawn
their policy statements.  I have never seen such language anywhere, and
can only conclude that Congress wants the DoD to use Ada for everything,
where cost-effective.

Case in point.  I recently posted an item about an Army Corp of Engineers
software effort done in Fortran, some hydraulics engineering code.  Now
this was a new effort, started after the effort.  Being an expert Ada-tran
programmer, I know the Corps could have developed the program more cost
effectively in Ada, by at least programming in Ada-tran, if not Ada itself.
But they did not, and I assume didn't even bother to get a waiver.  Yet
this is the very type of project I believe Congress had in mind when 
drafting the Mandate.

So until the Congress changes the wording of the Mandate, the Air Force and
Navy (and Army and ARPA) policy statements are not valid enough to help
programmers skirt the Mandate - they are still violating a federal law.

Of course, this is a philosophical argument, since no one inside the DoD
knows who is using what except for the largest of projects.  Everything
else is "don't tell, don't ask".

-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178