Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada?

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> 
> The movie lifted the quotation from a book called "Heart of Darkness"
> by Joseph Conrad.  If you enjoyed the movie, you'll love the book.
> 
Read that years ago. I think you can get it from Project Gutenberg.
http://promo.net/pg/


> 
> I agree completely.   The DoD officials involved in the language process have
> demonstrated an amazing level of stupidity in this regard, and the contractors
> are not much better. It is time for people who understand the benefits of
> Ada to simply choose it for their own projects.
> 
That is it. Make something useful out of it and go out and sell it. The 
"better mousetrap" rule still applies, but you've got to go find an end 
user willing to pay to get it.

> Still, I have this nagging feeling.   It comes from the realization that I want
> to send our troops to war with the very best tools and equipment;  tools
> and equipment that is build using the best software we can provide.  And I
> am uncomfortable with the use of the C family of languages for doing
> that.  So, for me, it is not so simple.
> 
I understand, but let's remember that even though it is harder to get 
things right in C/C++, it still can be done. You've got to exercise care 
up front in exactly what sort of code you produce (a lot is done by 
auto-code-generation these days, so hopefully this reduces many of the 
"stupid mistakes".) You've got to test very vigorously (which would be 
demanded of Ada anyway - see DO-178b for examples). It can be done - it 
just typically costs more in terms of catching defects at the back end 
instead of at the front end where it is cheaper to fix.

I wish the DoD, et alia, would see some wisdom in terms of using Ada, 
but like I said, they're driven by lots of different concerns and 
language merits are only one factor. So the object of the game should 
shift from trying to convince people that Technology X is superior to 
simply employing Technology X to build some finished product. Doing so 
successfully will breed more success.

MDC

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Marin David Condic
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