From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,64929ef0e791a22d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-03-15 07:52:34 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: sparky!uunet!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Re: Air Force helping to undermine Ada In-Reply-To: munck@STARS.RESTON.PARAMAX.COM's message of 14 Mar 93 00:08:26 GMT Message-ID: Sender: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Organization: The World References: <21040.732067706@blackbird> Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 15:47:21 GMT Date: 1993-03-15T15:47:21+00:00 List-Id: >DoD does not care if Xerox saves money or not. Therefore there is no >reason for them to buy a bunch of object code that was created from >Ada rather than a bunch created from C, or C++, or BRUIN. > >I personally think we are heading for a slow crisis because of the >mass of incomprehendable C that so many vendors are staking their >business upon. There will come a time when the pile is no longer >maintainable, and the company will be in trouble. Lotus went through >a crisis like this a few years ago, and the telephone companies are >going through it right now. Proper use of Ada would help avoid this. Bob, This is wishful thinking on your part. When it comes to spending their OWN money in the non-mandated world, people are not spending it on Ada. You have been on the dole too long to know what it is to make a decision about spending your own money. I agree Ada is probably a better language technically. But that is not the sole criteria for choosing a language; there are a variety of socioeconomic factors that the DoD continues to ignore. But these arguments about Ada and C/C++ are like the old arguments about democracy versus communism. The only thing that ever really counted was and is which direction people were choosing with their own feet. Similarly, all that really counts is how people spend their own money, and it is rarely on Ada. Eventually the Ada world will be so far behind the non-mandated world, the DoD will have no choice but to drop the mandate in order to fulfull its mission, as the supply base of Ada programmers and tools won't be large enough (as the FAA reports allude to to some extent). >Greg, I have to wonder why you keep attacking STARS. You never seem >to know much about the program, but you sure have an opinion of it! >I can only assume that your opinion is based on the same kind of logic >as that you demonstrated with the Xerox example. Bob, Which version of STARS are you referring to? The program has changed so many times its hard to keep a steady aim. But in general, here are some reasons I attack STARS. 1) ONE OF THE STARS GOALS WAS A LIE During the initial stages of the STARS program (the pre-RFP, the RFP, the initial efforts, and promises to the press and Congress) one of the often stated goals was that STARS would increase software productivity for the DoD by a factor of 10 (TEN). During the RFP stage, and for a time after, a few of us complained that never before had any project anywhere increased productivity by a factor of ten in software development, and that the STARS program had no sub-project to build a economic model to assess such a claim and collect the relevant data. Yet the STARS program stuck to this outrageous claim. About a year into the program, spring of 1990, I had a phone conversation with the then program manager, Colonel Joseph Greene, during which I asked how the STARS program was going to validate such a claim, especially since hardware and compiler advances alone were boosting productivity. He said, and I quote, "We are assuming that the gains in productivity will be so obvious we won't have to measure them". Finally, in 1991, the STARS program tasked a group at the IDA to look at the problem. Their report, given at the 1991 STARS conference concluded that: "Though the model and its parameters are subject to change, preliminary conclusions are: small increases in the speed of technology adoption result in large savings, the STARS program appears to be cost-effective, and achieving a decrease by a factor of two in software expenditures by the year 2000 WILL BE DIFFICULT. Thus, one of the things I know is that one of the main initial goals of STARS was a lie. 2) STARS CONTINUES TO IGNORE VHDL Defense weapon systems consist of two, ever overlapping items: hardware and software. To standardize software design and maintenance, the DoD developed Ada. To standardized hardware design and maintenance, the DoD developed VHDL. Both are fine standards with a very close syntactic structure. Thus you would figure that the DoD look into every possible way to integrate Ada and VHDL, which would allow the closer integration of hardware and software activities. Certainly a better meta idea. Yet the STARS program, the ideal environment for such an exploration, has completely ignored use of VHDL, even as VHDL is sweeping the commercial digital design world, and now the Air Force is seeking proposals for an analog VHDL - AHDL. VHDL has been so ignored by the DoD that most VHDL tool suppliers only have their products generate C code from a VHDL specification, when it would be easier to generate Ada code, given the syntactic similarities between the languages ( I doubt highly anyone with STARS has ever compared the Ada and VHDL grammars to discover this ). Thus, another thing I know is that STARS lack of vision has prevented it from helping to build bridges from Ada to VHDL. 3) STARS IS EMBARASSED ABOUT ITS RESULTS I am always hearing about the great technology and breakthroughs coming out of the STARS program, with the emphasis on 'hearing'. I go to many of the commercial software engineering conferences and trade shows each year, such as Object World, CASE World, Software Engineering, Embedded Systems, and NEVER do I see any of the STARS technology being talked about on or display. These perfect opportunities to present STARS technology to the non-Mandated world in order to get people interested in STARS and Ada are ignored. These perfect opportunities to present STARS technology at a booth in order to be discovered by small, new, software engineering companies who could contribute to STARS are ignored. These perfect opportunities to present STARS technology to the general public to get feedback and critiques from people not on the DoD dole are ignored. In short, the STARS program has consciously ignored presenting itself to the general public, at a great disservice both to the general programming community and the DoD. One can only assume that the STARS program is embarassed by its results, especially groups like IBM, which offers totally different technology to its commercial customers for solving the same problem. After all, when an Air Force unit can develop a CASE tool and get a US patent for it, and we still don't hear much pubicly about STARS, you have to wonder how embarassing these self-labeled breakthroughs really are. Thus, another thing I know about STARS is that the quality of the results is so low that everyone is afraid to present this technology in public forums. 4) STARS IS EMBARRASSED BY ITSELF As I have mentioned on comp.lang.ada, there are a variety of new industry groups in software engineering to promote new software technologies. For example, one such group is the Object Management Group, set up to coordinate object oriented programming and software tools. Few, if any, of the STARS contractors are members of this group and show up at Object World. Since it does not cost much to join the group, compared to the profits made on STARS contracts, it is hard to come up with a reason that STARS contractors are not members, other than their having an isolationist tendency. Thus another thing I know is that STARS for the most part is rejecting contacts with the outside world. 5) THE STARS REPOSITORY EFFORT ASSET IS A FAILURE I would like to say that most people think that ASSET is a joke, but that would require that most people know much about ASSET. Here is a software repository staffed by people with no background in software repositories, not doing any of things other established software reposities are doing. They don't post FAQs to comp.lang.ada, they are not anonymous-ftp accessible, they are not mail server accessible, they publish no marketing newsletters, they do not use CDROMs, their schema for components is useless for commercial suppliers of reusable software, they have no active program for seeking out resuable Ada software, they have little if any contact with non-DoD federal software repositories to seek advice, they reject the advice of commercial maintainers of software repositories and reusable software. Even though I maintain the largest database of information on reusable Defense software on a budget of a few thousand dollars a year, not once has anyone from ASSET ever called to ask how I do what I do, in order to help their own operations. Simply they don't care about running something more than a sit-on-your-butt passive repository. (One other thing. As part of STARS, IDA developed a spreadsheet economic model to make the above assessment that reducing costs by the year 2000 will be difficult. Not once has IDA ever bothered or cared to post information to comp.lang.ada, or anywhere else, about this spreadsheet and its availability. Like many other developed software items as part of STARS, the incompetency of promoting its reuse is ongoing and criminal.) In short, STARS' ASSET software repository is a failure, its people unqualified to run a repository, and all of this being tolerated by the current STARS program office (partly because no one in the STARS program office has experience running a repository, especially with their own money. The blind leading the blind). ============================================================================== Thus, before you get on my case, please get on your own. If my critiques are not well developed or thought out, it is only because I do not have your resources and funding. You try running STARS on a budget of a few thousand dollars a year, and see how far you get. Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimization -- ************************************************************************** Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimiztion P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178