Re: A scapegoat once again :(

[Gautier write-only <gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com>]

On 20 mai, 17:13, Britt Snodgrass <britt.snodgr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Seen on DailyTech today:
>
> http://www.dailytech.com/F22+Upgrades+Over+Budget+and+Behind+Schedule...
>
> "The cause of the delay in delivery stems from the programming
> language used called Ada. The Ada language was once a DoD standard,
> but the use of the language has waned in the last 15 years. Analyst
> Loren Thompson from the Lexington Institute said, "It tends to impede
> quick upgrades to the system to which it is the base software."
>
> It’s really sad and disturbing to read such an incorrect and
> uninformed statement. How could Ada "impede quick upgrades" unless
> they really mean that the coders they've been hiring recently are
> intimidated by compiler warnings.

If it can reassure you, I don't think the person behind that statement
knows what a compiler warning is :-). It sounds more like standard "IT
fashionista" speech from a not very technical person. Typically they
want "long-lasting technologies", the "newest technology", and "quick
upgrades" at the same time. They just cannot imagine that there could
be a contradiction in all that. It would mean they have a knowledge of
what makes a technology suitable for long-term projects.

Fortunately, now that time is passing and IT is stabilizing, you can
show with examples and nice Powerpoint slides why flashy technologies
are not suitable for projects due to last for more than 5 years. In
many cases, upgrades with MS technologies just don't work. In a recent
case a few days ago (porting a legacy .NET+SQL software to a new
server), the upgrade wizard stopped with a very verbose statement
"Type mismatch". No more info, like for instance the location. Bye-
bye. Fortunately I have made a replacement in Ada. So I was able to
say: "Don't worry, we'll install the old MS framework since the
software itself won't be updated; we have a replacement that avoids
using technologies with programmed obsolescence." :-)

G.