Re: employment with ada

["Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org>]

<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message news:Edxua.536069$Zo.114084@sccrnsc03...
> >One might argue "Ada saves you costs in long term maintenance..." I
agree,
> >but how big a number is that. Is it big enough to overcome the startup
costs
>   It seems really surprising to me that in a time of super low interest
> rates, ie discount rate for money, people seem *less* willing to make
> investments with longer payoffs!

You have a point & I suppose that was the idea behind the Fed dropping the
rates to historicly low levels. Could be that other fears figure into the
equation. 911, Terrorism, the Gulf War, etc. have all made for an uncertain
business climate which discourages long term investments. Perhaps with the
war essentially over and terrorism incidents down to historic lows, some
confidence will start to build.

The problem with us engineering types is that we often get an idea in our
head "Why doesn't our company do X? It ought to save money in the long
run....." And of course, the problem is we've neve done the math to show
that it actually will. We don't *know* that it will save money - we just
guess. That's why although I know that Ada *can* save money on a given
project through reduced defects and increased productivity, I am not always
critical of those who go down other paths. I know there are lots of other
factors involved and that unless I've done the math, I can't say out of hand
that they're wrong.

For those who want jobs in Ada,. here's a hint in promoting Ada in your
workplace: Learn something about business & economics and lay out your case
after doing as objective and thorough analysis as you can. Its a lot harder
to argue with numbers than it is with vague notions.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/

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