Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net>]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> "Gary Scott" <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
> news:yWgCi.852$4J3.839@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net...
> 
>>But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers themselves. 
>>When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C programmers were 
>>turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't pick up Ada, but because 
>>they wanted to keep their C skills polished in case they found a better 
>>position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from non-use, and you fall behind the 
>>latest standards over time.
>>
> 
> I have heard this argument from the so-called managers who were using
> it as an excuse for not using Ada.    When the interviewing manager says
> something such as, "Of course, in our shop you will be programming in
> Ada instead of C.   I know this is a little bit out of the mainstream, but
> the government programming we do requires us to use Ada."  Or some
> similar line of apologetic interviewing, what can we expect.   Yes.  Too
> often, the managers would apologize for using Ada instead of focusing
> on the benefits of using it.   And there are a lot of benefits.  Adam mentioned
> the software engineering benefits, and those benefits are substantial.

I don't disagree that this would be an impact of such a line of 
questioning.  I have no information that this occurred.  It certainly 
never happened with me.  However, I have discussed these issues with 
many programmers and it is a somewhat pervasive attitude that not 
keeping their C language skills honed places them at a competitive 
disadvantage.  Defense has somewhat frequent employment ups and downs. 
They simply want to be competitive with those competing for commercial jobs.

I had a conversation with Nancy Leveson (Safety Critical Software).  She 
tends to be somewhat language agnostic in her books, but it is my belief 
that she agrees with the above but is hesitant to voice such a heretical 
view.
> 
> When I was just a programmer, even a programming manager, before discovering
> Ada, I did not really understand software engineering very well.   Most of what
> passed for (and still passes for) software engineering was the adoption of 
> Industrial
> Engineering protocols on the software process.   There was very little of what
> any real engineer would call engineering.    I have Ada to thank for helping me
> rise above the programming model that I had been stuck with for so many years.
> 
> Hardly anyone engineers software in C.   Very few really use C++ to engineer
> software solutions.   As long as we remain tied to the notion that programmers
> are the driving force in the software process, we are doomed to a long nightmare
> of horrible applications where debugging is the norm and design is the 
> exception.
> If C++ is the answer, someone is asking the wrong question.
> 
> Where C is often called a "universal assembler,"  C++ is an object-oriented
> assembler, and not as universal as C.    If software engineering is, in part, 
> about
> levels of abstraction, C++ is at a very low level of abstraction.   As long as 
> we
> continue to think of software in terms of computers instead of in terms of the
> required solutions, we will be stuck with a model of software that continues
> to focus on the low-level issues.
> 
> When I first began to learn Ada, coming to it as an old-fashioned programmer,
> it was a strange and difficult transition.   My first inclination was to look 
> for ways
> I could leverage Chapter 13 for my code.    It took a while to understand the
> finer points of the language.  Once I was able to understand those, it seemed
> strange to me that I used to write programs in a different way.
> 
> Sadly, those LMCO managers on Aegis who made the decision for C++ instead
> of Ada simply don't understand Ada.   They are still thinking in terms of 
> programming
> languages, not in terms of engineered software.   This is true of most of the 
> DoD
> contractors I have known over the past twenty+ years.   They have no idea of the
> benefits of software engineering, something they can do with Ada better than 
> with
> most other options.   It is a matter of ignorance, nothing more.    If they did 
> understand
> the difference, there would never have been abandonment of Ada in favor of C++.
> 
> So, instead of learning how to apply good software engineering principles, most 
> of
> them have behaved like human lemmings, blindly following the idiotic choices 
> made
> by those in the software industry who also know little about engineering, but a 
> lot
> about programming.
> 
> Until the DoD, and industry in general, begins to take more of an engineering 
> approach
> to the development of software, we will continue to wrestle in our bedclothes 
> with
> the software nightmares that continue to haunt us, only to wake in the morning 
> and
> discover that our best efforts to control those nightmares have consummated 
> themselves
> in nothing more than a simple wet-dream.
> 
> Richard Riehle
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

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