Re: Data shows Top 50 Software Vendors not using Ada

[world!srctran@decwrl.dec.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

>This time I don't think this list of companies means that much to what the
>DoD is required to do.  Do any of these companies build systems that need
>to be as fault tolerant as DoD systems?  I doubt it. If there software fails,
>just reboot and go on.

   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.
   Consider Wall Street.  Each day these guys trade hundreds of billions of
dollars in financial products, futures, stocks, etc.  Miss one tick or
second of market movements, and you could lose millions of your OWN money.
Their systems can't break down during the trading day, their algorithms have
to handle all market exceptions, etc.  Because at stake is billions of
dollars.  Yet they seem to survive without high priced Ada systems.
   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,
and the propagation throughout the system will cost the airline millions.
Over 1200 flights are handled daily. Certainly American Airlines logistics
here are as complicated as most similar DoD operations, and they do this
everyday.
   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?
Some guy had to use his credit card and make a phone call back to the US
over phone lines programmed with C because the DoD's Ada communications
systems couldn't talk to each other.  "Yea operator, I'm on a beach trying
to redirect the shelling - can you connect me to the military".

  The DoD has to understand that its problems are no longer unique, that
many others having just as pressing problems, and that these people are
addressing these problems with their own money without Ada, and without
spending a lot of tax dollars on over priced software tools.  And what
does the leading Ada contractor, IBM, say to its customers when they
ask how to solve such problems - "Use C++ or Smalltalk - we do".

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