From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,42490cad53ee37fa X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!atl-c03.usenetserver.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada? References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:07:19 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.22.249 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net 1111410439 209.165.22.249 (Mon, 21 Mar 2005 05:07:19 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 05:07:19 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:9668 Date: 2005-03-21T13:07:19+00:00 List-Id: 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 -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "'Shut up,' he explained." -- Ring Lardner ======================================================================