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=1.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,415fcad8e992e1f3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-01-07 07:41:27 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!nntpserver.pppl.gov!princeton!udel!gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.kei.com!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Re: Ada Dual-Use Conference In-Reply-To: dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM's message of 5 Jan 1995 14:41:34 -0600 Message-ID: Sender: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Organization: The World References: <1995Jan5.133326.547@sei.cmu.edu> <3ehlhu$bis@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 15:41:27 GMT Date: 1995-01-07T15:41:27+00:00 List-Id: >From: dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller) >Greg, why don't you change your tune? YOu keep citing the same >problems (including that annoying AF AI thingy) and spouting the same >rants. Can't you come up with something original? David, The Air Force's KBSA project is a large AI CASE effort that is mostly non-Ada, and thus its contractors are in direction violation of the Ada Mandate, as well as the spirit of the Ada Mandate. It is not a "thingy" as you so dismiss, but a program as far reaching as the STARS project, if not more, because many involved with KBSA are in the universities, spending their non-Ada DoD money to train new programmers. To have both KBSA and STARS is a contradiction (which was reflected in Mosemann's Air Force AI memo where he didn't have enough guts to direct the Air Force to use Ada). And because the Army and Navy see that the Air Force is being allowed to spend lots of money and non-Ada CASE efforts, they too are starting to fund non-Ada CASE efforts, which probably pleases ARPA to no end as it funds tons of non-Ada CASE technology. If you are the type that encourages members of the Armed Forces to ignore federal laws, what other crimes to you encourage them to commit? The Ada Mandate has been hypocrisy from day one, as the Pentagon turned a blind eye towards countless violations of the Mandate. The DoD is about as comfortable with the Ada Mandate as it is with homosexuality: for it has the same policy for both - we won't crack down on what you don't tell us about. No one wants to measure the percentage of Ada use inside the DoD because that directly reveals to the Pentagon what it doesn't want to know: who isn't using Ada - because if it did know it would be forced to enforce the Mandate that would violate so many turf boundaries that chaos would quickly occur. In short, DoD apathy fosters hypocrisy which leads to waste. WHy do I keep on harping about the same abuses of waste, fraud and incompetence? Because they remain untreated by the professionals in the DoD. The Ada Mandate remains nothing more than a license for vendors and contractors to gouge taxpayers with uncompetitive Ada technologies, all the while developing products that allow them to claim to the commercial world that use of their tools on C++ is as cost effective as with Ada. So they have the best of both worlds - they gouge the taxpayers supporting an idiotic Ada policy while using some of these profits to develop C++ tools which they peddle to the public with the same claims for C++ that they make for Ada in the DoD world. Nothing illegal about taking advantage of the amateurs in the DoD in this way, but utterly hypocritical and causing Ada's market share to stagnate. After all, when was the last time you saw a full page ad for an Ada compiler with any pricing mentioned anywhere? So much for the marketing of the very best language in existence. Look at IBM, for a while an even bigger cheerleader for Ada than you try to be. Yet once the Ada pork started drying up, IBM dumped its Ada stuff, and threw all of its corporate weight being C++ and Smalltalk. Not once since IBM has abandonded Ada has it publicly said anything about Ada, and certainly not all of the BS it slung at the DoD. And I know that many of the others praising Ada will sing another tune once even more pork dries up. My song remains the same because their's does. But hey, have fun encouraging and supporting the breaking of a federal law - hope you are making some money at it. Greg Aharonian