Re: state of Ada / Paige memo

["Brian Gaffney" <briangaffney@bellsouth.net>]

<jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message 
news:1188524716.464116.221000@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 30, 6:48 pm, Gary Scott <garylsc...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> I deal with DOD a lot.  I don't think this is generally true.  Industry
>> rebellion had something to do with it (ready trained supply of C
>> programmers (er hackers)).
>
> I have also had some experience with the DoD. Industry rebellion is not
> a valid excuse. DoD Purchasing Organizations can easily require cost and
> quality analyses of chosen tools, including programming languages. The
> fact that they do not is an indication that contracts are often produced
> and supervised by very junior officers with little or no experience in
> the field. Those officers learn are taught their jobs by interacting with
> the Industry contractors. Those contractors are adept at feeding loads of
> bovine excrement to the junior officers as though it was real
> information.
>

Is this related to the people involved or the organizations?  If the 
purchasing organization is responsible for purchasing only, and the people 
move on to the next one once a purchase is complete, life cycle analysis 
doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to them.  Even if the people wanted to 
honestly evaluate it, they typically have no experience in that little phase 
after purchase called "maintenance".

You might (or might not) get a different picture if you looked at cases 
where the organization responsible for maintenance has a substantial role, 
such as upgrades to existing systems.

--Brian