Re: Ada versus language-X and "getting real work done" (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP

[xanthian@well.com (Kent Paul Dolan)]

softeng3456@netscape.net (soft-eng) wrote:

> Now wait a minute, I thought the "exemption" system
> was fully authorized and legal.  Why should anybody
> be court-martialed for taking advantage of
> a feature of the system?

Well, in the case of a former DoD contract employer shop of
mine, because they deliberately, repeatedly, and with malice
aforethought _created_ the situation that _required_ the
exemption, specifically _for the purpose of_ being eligible
for the exemption, when the directive and intention was that
the exemptions be based on unavoidable hardship, and short
term while affirmative steps were taken to overcome the
reasons an exemption was needed.

In the case, they put out requests for proposal for
supercomputers for which no Ada compilers were then
available, knowing they were required to move to Ada
programming, and failed to include in those RFPs the
requirement, roughly a 10% add-on cost, that the
supercomputer be delivered with a working Ada compiler
installed.

They did this, and bragged internally on having done this,
specifically to escape having to convert a shop of die-hard
Fortran programmers to be Ada programmers.  Their exemption
requests were of course granted, there were indeed no Ada
compilers for the now-installed computers their work required.

The phrase "taking advantage of" answers your own question.

When I conveyed this scam-system to Emmett Paige, his
investigation was so clumsy I was quickly discovered and
equally quickly terminated by the furious and embarrassed
local O6 commanding officer who had been perpetrating the
hoax: 24 hours after my email was sent, I was unemployed.
There were no whistle-blower protections in those days, and
interest in the well being of the informant was naturally
absent.

xanthian, who wrote the only Ada code ever used in that shop,
up to then, so far as I know.