employment with ada

employment with ada

[tom]

Hi all,

i've been reading and learning about ada due to
some...annoyance...with c++.  the first computer programming book i
ever read was booch's _software engineering with ada_ ( got it for $2
) and i've liked the language ever since.  now, it's 4 years later and
i'm looking for a programming job.

my question is:  what strategies do you use to successfully obtain
work where you can program in ada on a regular basis?  monster.com
showed 35 jobs ( for senior engineers ) nationwide ( US ).  what
advice do you have for someone that is new to the language and fairly
junior as a programmer?

thanks,

tom

Re: employment with ada

[Ed Falis]

I think part of the issue is knowing where you're located.  Then people
here could probably give you some ideas.

- Ed

Re: employment with ada

[John McCabe]

On 1 May 2003 17:36:30 -0700, crebralfix@angelfire.com (tom) wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>i've been reading and learning about ada due to
>some...annoyance...with c++.  the first computer programming book i
>ever read was booch's _software engineering with ada_ ( got it for $2
>) and i've liked the language ever since.  now, it's 4 years later and
>i'm looking for a programming job.
>
>my question is:  what strategies do you use to successfully obtain
>work where you can program in ada on a regular basis?  monster.com
>showed 35 jobs ( for senior engineers ) nationwide ( US ).  what
>advice do you have for someone that is new to the language and fairly
>junior as a programmer?

Make sure you don't ask for too much money. In my experience Ada is
most often used by large organisations who, in the UK, are notorious
for poor salary.

However what I've found in the past is that people looking for Ada
programmers often realise that a good programmer with enthusiasm for
Ada can be more important that an 'experienced' Ada programmer who may
be a bit tired of the language. If I was you I would apply for
whatever vacancies arise explaining your position in the covering
letter. Just be honest. Even though these adverts are for senior
positions, there must be junior programmers in the organisation and,
even if you're not successful in the senior post, at least they will
know your name for anything more suitable.

If at all possible avoid using a 3rd party agency for this. In my
experience most employment agencies haven't a clue about software
development and won't even forward your CV (resume!) to an
organisation unless you have about a 99% skills match!

Good luck.

Best Regards
John McCabe

To reply by email replace 'nospam' with 'assen'

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Realistically, most programming positions aren't going to involve Ada and
the programming language is only one aspect of the job. Most people are
going to get the best job satisfaction if they are working for a company
that gives them interesting work in a field they enjoy and located in an
area they like. So pick the part of the world you want to live in, find
companies there doing something you think is important and interesting and
don't worry too much about what language their major software products are
written in.

Consider also that you might find a position where the product you are
working on is in some other language. You probably won't be able to get
anyone to convert that product into an Ada product, but that doesn't mean
you can't use Ada on your job. Almost always, you can "invent" your own job
if you really want to. Your "real" work may involve maintaining some big C++
system, but inevitably, you will see a need for some sort of support tool or
add-on or process improvement aid. Get yourself the Gnat compiler and GtkAda
and whatever else you need and build that in your "spare time". (Put in some
free overtime, steal some hours when there is some slack time, etc.) When
you get the thing built you take it to your boss and say "Look what I did -
would others in the organization like to use it?" Soon you find yourself
with full time work maintaining some sideline project in Ada.

Another way to invent your own job is with a little entrepreneurial spirit.
Come up with an idea for a product that is either all software or has
software as a major component. Build a prototype using Ada. See if you can
get others interested in it. If it is useful and marketable, you might just
find yourself becoming the next Bill Gates.

The main point is that if you wait around for some big company to see the
sweet light of reason and switch to programming in Ada, you'll likely have a
long wait. You need to create things in Ada in order to have work in Ada.
Good luck with the job search!

MDC




tom <crebralfix@angelfire.com> wrote in message
news:626e8ae.0305011636.5e899da3@posting.google.com...
>
> my question is:  what strategies do you use to successfully obtain
> work where you can program in ada on a regular basis?  monster.com
> showed 35 jobs ( for senior engineers ) nationwide ( US ).  what
> advice do you have for someone that is new to the language and fairly
> junior as a programmer?
>


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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Bill Sheehan]

Are you clearable?

That is can you obtain a Secret clearance (Top Secret is in high demand!)
If you can, and you are willing to move...

BillS

Re: employment with ada

[R. Srinivasan]

assuming you are talking about US citizens -- how does one go about
obtaining one? i always thought the employers would have to apply on ones
behalf.

"Bill Sheehan" <sheehanw@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:tWAsa.86327$A41.12952818@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> Are you clearable?
>
> That is can you obtain a Secret clearance (Top Secret is in high demand!)
> If you can, and you are willing to move...
>
> BillS
>
>

Re: employment with ada

[John R. Strohm]

"R. Srinivasan" <r.srinivasan@cox.net> wrote in message
news:UCGsa.11960$g41.714387@news1.east.cox.net...
> assuming you are talking about US citizens -- how does one go about
> obtaining one? i always thought the employers would have to apply on ones
> behalf.
>
> "Bill Sheehan" <sheehanw@optonline.net> wrote in message
> news:tWAsa.86327$A41.12952818@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> > Are you clearable?
> >
> > That is can you obtain a Secret clearance (Top Secret is in high
demand!)
> > If you can, and you are willing to move...
> >
> > BillS

You are correct, your employer has to apply on your behalf.  The first
requirement is generally US citizenship.

Re: employment with ada

[anisimkov]

John R. Strohm wrote:
>>>Are you clearable?
>>>
>>>That is can you obtain a Secret clearance (Top Secret is in high
> 
> demand!)
> 
>>>If you can, and you are willing to move...
>>>
>>>BillS
> 
> You are correct, your employer has to apply on your behalf.  The first
> requirement is generally US citizenship.

So, It is easier for USA citizen to find Ada job in a some company.
Others have to invent Ada job on they own, it is harder, but possible. If the company do not have a
strong programming policy (about language to use), the some inventive programmer could move
the software development to the Ada way. I'm going this way for about 3 years.
Now the company client-server internet product has 4 executable files written in Ada for the server side.
The web page about system architecture http://www.actforex.com/architec.html
say nothing about Ada, but say about "JAVA" (3 applets written in Java).
Everybody know that Java is a "cool" ;-/.
I'm thinking about to ask management to white there some notes about Ada usage.

Re: employment with ada

[Anders Wirzenius]

"anisimkov" <anisimkov@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:b8vihn$djt$1@ns.omskelecom.ru...
> So, It is easier for USA citizen to find Ada job in a some company.
> Others have to invent Ada job on they own, it is harder, but possible. If the company do not have a
> strong programming policy (about language to use), the some inventive programmer could move
> the software development to the Ada way. I'm going this way for about 3 years.

I am in pretty much the same situation. The core business of the company is not software development - hence, there is no formal
programming policy. I use Ada for developing internal tools for my nearest co-workers.

The price is of course that you are a lonesome rider and have nobody to discuss coding with.

Anders

Re: employment with ada

[AG]

"Anders Wirzenius" <anders.wirzenius@pp.qnet.fi> wrote in message
news:7VJsa.29$np2.7@read3.inet.fi...
>
> I am in pretty much the same situation. The core business of the company
is not software development - >hence, there is no formal programming policy.

Unfortunately, that also means that the programming/software developement
isn't too important for the company. Which means that whatever happens
there won't have a huge impact on the industry as a whole.

Yes, it's certainly a good idea to try it anyway - any little bit helps.
But, as soon as you run into some production requirements
for a mostly software-oriented environment (like source-control
for instance?) it's becoming quite a bit more difficult to do that.

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

R. Srinivasan <r.srinivasan@cox.net> wrote in message
news:UCGsa.11960$g41.714387@news1.east.cox.net...
> assuming you are talking about US citizens -- how does one go about
> obtaining one? i always thought the employers would have to apply on ones
> behalf.


True. The employer will have you fill out forms & will apply for the
clearance. It can take a good long time to get unless you have had one
previously within two years. The thing is, there could be impediments to
getting a clearance at all. Such as lack of US citizenship, felony
convictions, prior revocation of a clearance, etc. So the two big questions
are "Are you a US citizen?" and "Do you have anything in your past that
would possibly stop you from getting a clearance?" Usually a person has a
pretty good idea if they've done anything that would stop a clearance. If
you have, the best advice I can offer is DON'T LIE!!!! If, for example,
you've been busted for drugs and lie about never being busted for drugs,
they will likely find out about it and that's it for you. If you tell the
truth about it and have a convincing story about how you have reformed
yourself, they might still give it to you.

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

anisimkov <anisimkov@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:b8vihn$djt$1@ns.omskelecom.ru...
>
> So, It is easier for USA citizen to find Ada job in a some company.

Only in so far as one is talking about government related work - and that
isn't necessarily all done in Ada anyway. It certainly is one of the places
with a higher density of Ada projects, but it is also not the only one. Ada
is used in commercial applications, but you kind of have to look around for
it. People don't generally advertise that they do their software in a
specific language. Except, of course, when trying to hire programmers with
appropriate experience.


> Others have to invent Ada job on they own, it is harder, but possible. If
the company do not have a
> strong programming policy (about language to use), the some inventive
programmer could move
> the software development to the Ada way. I'm going this way for about 3
years.

Good for you. That's exactly how Ada is going to find a commercial base. If
people develop things in Ada when the company doesn't care what they use, or
if it sneaks in the back door or if it is done as a speculative venture,
you'll see more growth in Ada jobs. Make useful software in Ada and it will
create its own market.

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On 1 May 2003 17:36:30 -0700, crebralfix@angelfire.com (tom) wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>i've been reading and learning about ada due to
>some...annoyance...with c++.  the first computer programming book i
>ever read was booch's _software engineering with ada_ ( got it for $2
>) and i've liked the language ever since.  now, it's 4 years later and
>i'm looking for a programming job.
>
>my question is:  what strategies do you use to successfully obtain
>work where you can program in ada on a regular basis?  monster.com
>showed 35 jobs ( for senior engineers ) nationwide ( US ).  what
>advice do you have for someone that is new to the language and fairly
>junior as a programmer?
>
>thanks,
>
>tom

Hi Tom,

I've just returned from the Software Technology Conference, a large
conference and trade show for DoD types, held annually in Salt Lake
City.  What I saw there leads me to say this:

While Ada is truely a superior language, I believe you should rethink
getting into it on anything above a hobby basis.

At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.

Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
subset of C.

The safety critical subset of C is C with 172 restrictions, augmented
by a source code analyzer to look out for problems.

Why give up on Ada?  They actually did a study - this isn't just
someone's personal preference or prejudice.  They found:

1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.

2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."

3) The people fleeing Ada are right - there were, at last survey 2
years ago, 5% Ada jobs.  An informal survey of the latest job market
puts it at around 1%.

4) They projected that they would have to go thru several code
overhauls to change compilers as Ada compiler providers either went
out of business, or dropped Ada compilers from their product line.

They emphasized, over and over, that they are personally Ada zealots,
but from a business perspective, Ada for much of the JSF code would be
a boneheaded business decision.  4% of the operational flight program
will be in Ada, the remainder in that subset of C.  Program-wide,
including the support software such as trainers, Ada will acount for
approx 1%.

I understand it.  I hate it, but I understand it.  The road to Ada, in
2003, now leads to a garbage pit.

I was about to say that the only hope to do Ada at all in the future
might be working for the government, but I already do that, and see
that the government has two problems.  These are:

1) The government is attempting to contract everything out.  If you
are in software at all in the government, you probably have a future
as a contract monitor.

2) Talk around where I work, where they actually do Ada, is toward
moving to C or C++.  I don't think we've done any Lockheed-Martin-like
studies, but those who think themselves futurists seem to be saying
this more and more.

Much as I hate to say it, I think Ada is dead.  If Lockheed Martin
can't make a business case for choosing Ada, who can?  What project
would still choose it, and why?  I can't think of anyone who could
justify swimming upstream like that.

Anyone?

Dave Head

Re: employment with ada

[Chad R. Meiners]

"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...

> 1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
> qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
> of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
> source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.

Now that just isn't true!  Truman State University's (www.truman.edu)
computer science program is taught almost entirely in Ada.  In fact Boeing
sends representatives to the university to give job hiring presentations
outside of the normal career expo.

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Sat, 3 May 2003 12:22:19 -0400, "Chad R. Meiners"
<crmeiners@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
>news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
>
>> 1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
>> qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
>> of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
>> source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.
>
>Now that just isn't true!  Truman State University's (www.truman.edu)
>computer science program is taught almost entirely in Ada.  In fact Boeing
>sends representatives to the university to give job hiring presentations
>outside of the normal career expo.

Glad to hear it.

Any others?

Someone should tell LM.

Dave Head
>

Re: employment with ada

[Richard Riehle]

DPH wrote:

> At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
> Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.
>
> Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
> strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
> the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
> critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
> subset of C.

Reading through the list of reasons given for abanonding Ada in JSF,
I cannot agree with their decision.   There are plenty of opportunities
for Ada training outside the university environment, some of it of
better quality than they would get in college classes.

The LMCO programmers are, as with any other kind of employee,
expected to work with the tools and resources appropriate to the
job.   Looking for another job is secondary to that.

The focus of the JSF effort is to produce the best quality software
possible for the aircraft.   Instead, they cobble together a set of
restrictions for C, restrictions we can be assured will be ignored
over the lifetime of the project.

Some Ada compiler publishers have vanished.   Many of those
were simply acquired by Ada compiler publishers that still exist.  Some
should have gone out of business a long time ago.   A few are hanging
on by a slim margin, and this decision does not help.  The hardware
vendor compilers (HP, Tandem, etc.) actually used Alsys (now
Aonix) compilers with their own label so the list of compilers is
smaller, but the original developers are still around.

Though the LMCO presenters may consider themselves "zealots,"
and though they think this was a "boneheaded" business decision,
if the reasons they gave are the real reasons, it was a wrong
decision.   It will cost them more in the long run,  they will be
fighting with quality issues in C they would not encounter with
Ada, and the programmers they are trying to retain with C will
leave just as quickly if not more so than if they were using Ada.

It is interesting  to me that, as I see DoD contractors making the error
of moving away from Ada toward inferior technologies, non-DoD
organizations are discovering its benefits (some of them are not
in the U.S.) and enjoying success with it.   This is one more example
of the old phrase, "grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory."

Richard Riehle

Re: employment with ada

[Jeffrey Carter]

DPH wrote:
> On Sat, 3 May 2003 12:22:19 -0400, "Chad R. Meiners"
> <crmeiners@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
>>news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
>>
>>>1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
>>>qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
>>>of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
>>>source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.
>>
>>Now that just isn't true!  Truman State University's (www.truman.edu)
>>computer science program is taught almost entirely in Ada.  In fact Boeing
>>sends representatives to the university to give job hiring presentations
>>outside of the normal career expo.
> 
> Glad to hear it.
> 
> Any others?
> 
> Someone should tell LM.

http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-foundation.html

lists 117 "Colleges and Universities Introducing Ada as the First 
Language Taught in a Computing Curriculum". 56 are not in the US, 
leaving "only" 61 in the US. 33 more (25 in the US) introduce Ada in the 
2nd or 3rd course in the curriculum.

Given this level of FUD on their 1st point, I have to suspect that they 
were rationalizing their prejudices, not examining the evidence and 
reaching a valid conclusion.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"All citizens will be required to change their underwear
every half hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside,
so we can check."
Bananas

Re: employment with ada

[Jeffrey Carter]

Richard Riehle wrote:
> 
> ... It [using a subset of C] will cost them more in the long run ...

Here we probably see the real business case. The longer and more 
expensive the software is, the more profit the company makes, under 
typical large defense software contracts.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"All citizens will be required to change their underwear
every half hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside,
so we can check."
Bananas

Re: employment with ada

[John R. Strohm]

"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
> I've just returned from the Software Technology Conference, a large
> conference and trade show for DoD types, held annually in Salt Lake
> City.  What I saw there leads me to say this:
>
> While Ada is truely a superior language, I believe you should rethink
> getting into it on anything above a hobby basis.
>
> At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
> Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.
>
> Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
> strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,

I would be very interested in knowing the names of the people involved here.
If they were from Lockheed-Martin Fort Worth, I probably know (or knew) some
of them, and it might answer some questions.

> the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
> critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
> subset of C.
>
> The safety critical subset of C is C with 172 restrictions, augmented
> by a source code analyzer to look out for problems.
>
> Why give up on Ada?  They actually did a study - this isn't just
> someone's personal preference or prejudice.  They found:

I'm writing this in two passes.  I would have enjoyed being there, to ask
some pertinent questions.

> 1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
> qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
> of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
> source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.

Oh, really?  In about 1980, General Dynamics/Fort Worth Division cranked up
the F-16 Multinational Staged Improvement Program, which, among other
things, featured new Operational Flight Programs (OFPs) written in JOVIAL
J73, for MIL-STD-1750A and Zilog Z8002.  At that time, to my recollection,
there was one existing JOVIAL J73 compiler, targeting the 1750A, and it was
nowhere near production quality, and there were NO compilers available
targeting Z8000.  Also, there were no JOVIAL J73 programmers available.  Nor
were there any universities teaching JOVIAL J73.  By your reasoning, General
Dynamics should not have been able to build F-16C/D at all, yet clearly they
did: the airplane has been flying for almost twenty years, and is projected
to remain in service for another twenty.  How do you reconcile your results
with their experience?

> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."

How often did that reason show up in exit interviews for F-16A/B firecontrol
computer OFP programmers, who were using JOVIAL J3B?  How often did it show
up for F-16C/D programmers, who were using JOVIAL J73?  What happened to all
those JOVIAL J73 programmers when F-16C/D switched to Ada in the mid-1990s?

> 3) The people fleeing Ada are right - there were, at last survey 2
> years ago, 5% Ada jobs.  An informal survey of the latest job market
> puts it at around 1%.

There appears to be an interesting assumption in there.  The assumption
appears to be that Lockheed-Martin does not believe in retaining people who
are proven performers, retooling and retraining them as necessary.  In the
1960s and early 1970s, General Dynamics (and many other companies) did a
massive internal retraining program to convert engineers in other
disciplines into embedded software engineers, because they had a critical
shortage of software engineers when software suddenly became important.

So why, if LM were in fact intent on retaining people, would those people
choose to flee?  Possibly, they perceive that LM is not their employer of
choice?  Possibly, there are human relations problems?

> 4) They projected that they would have to go thru several code
> overhauls to change compilers as Ada compiler providers either went
> out of business, or dropped Ada compilers from their product line.

When General Dynamics bought the JOVIAL J73 compilers for F-16C/D, they
faced this very same set of problems, only worse.  THERE WERE NO
PRODUCTION-QUALITY JOVIAL J73 COMPILERS AVAILABLE.  The ONLY bids to develop
compilers came from small business.  See Judy Edwards and Barry Mowday's
paper on how to buy a compiler from a small business.  As a result, GD
bought the compilers INCLUDING ALL SOURCE CODE AND BUILD MATERIALS, so that
they would continue to be able to build it, on whatever platform.

How does the fact that you are using C change this?  Vendors still go out of
business, they still discontinue products.

> They emphasized, over and over, that they are personally Ada zealots,
> but from a business perspective, Ada for much of the JSF code would be
> a boneheaded business decision.  4% of the operational flight program
> will be in Ada, the remainder in that subset of C.  Program-wide,
> including the support software such as trainers, Ada will acount for
> approx 1%.

Having been at GD/FW during F-16C/D, I am peripherally aware of the risks
involved in airplane software development.  Part of your analysis had to be
a risk assessment, of the relative risk of a Class A mishap caused by a
software defect.  It is well-known from the industry that Ada vs. C by
itself has significant impact on software defect density (Consult Pratt &
Whitney for their experience: you buy engines from them).  What did your
assessment of this factor show, given that the cost of a Class A mishap is
many millions of dollars for an airplane, and about the same for the pilot?

--John

Re: employment with ada

[Alexandre E. Kopilovitch]

DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote:
>...
>Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
>strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
>the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
>critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
>subset of C.
>
>The safety critical subset of C is C with 172 restrictions, augmented
>by a source code analyzer to look out for problems.

Well, I think those "Ada zealots" shouldn't worry, and perhaps some Ada tools
vendors may be satisfied enough with this decision... especially SofCheck,
because it has Ada-to-C compiler, and probably will be able to adapt it for
172 additional restrictions on output. So, all production code will be in C,
while use of Ada will be merely some kind of automation, which increases
productivity of coders and reviewers.


Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Sat, 3 May 2003 19:25:53 -0500, "John R. Strohm"
<strohm@airmail.net> wrote:

>"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
>news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
>> I've just returned from the Software Technology Conference, a large
>> conference and trade show for DoD types, held annually in Salt Lake
>> City.  What I saw there leads me to say this:
>>
>> While Ada is truely a superior language, I believe you should rethink
>> getting into it on anything above a hobby basis.
>>
>> At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
>> Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.
>>
>> Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
>> strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
>
>I would be very interested in knowing the names of the people involved here.

The speaker listing in the events guide is John H. Robb.  I didn't
write down the names of the 2 fellows that actually showed up.

>If they were from Lockheed-Martin Fort Worth, I probably know (or knew) some
>of them, and it might answer some questions.
>
>> the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
>> critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
>> subset of C.
>>
>> The safety critical subset of C is C with 172 restrictions, augmented
>> by a source code analyzer to look out for problems.
>>
>> Why give up on Ada?  They actually did a study - this isn't just
>> someone's personal preference or prejudice.  They found:
>
>I'm writing this in two passes.  I would have enjoyed being there, to ask
>some pertinent questions.

The Software Technology Conference should not be missed for many
reasons.

>
>> 1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
>> qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
>> of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
>> source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.
>
>Oh, really?  In about 1980, General Dynamics/Fort Worth Division cranked up
>the F-16 Multinational Staged Improvement Program, which, among other
>things, featured new Operational Flight Programs (OFPs) written in JOVIAL
>J73, for MIL-STD-1750A and Zilog Z8002.  At that time, to my recollection,
>there was one existing JOVIAL J73 compiler, targeting the 1750A, and it was
>nowhere near production quality, and there were NO compilers available
>targeting Z8000.  Also, there were no JOVIAL J73 programmers available.  Nor
>were there any universities teaching JOVIAL J73.  By your reasoning, General
>Dynamics should not have been able to build F-16C/D at all, yet clearly they
>did: the airplane has been flying for almost twenty years, and is projected
>to remain in service for another twenty.  How do you reconcile your results
>with their experience?

I don't know the business atmosphere at that time.  Were people
leaving because they were assigned to program a "dead" language?
Teach someone Ada, and they (sometimes) leave because they fear they
will be obsolete and unemployable because they don't have piles of
experience in C++ and / or Java, and then where are you?  You're out
the training money, and still can't hire decently trained Ada
programmers.  In contrast, C++ programmers,  who can basically program
C by default, are as numerous as weeds in the garden.  

>
>> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
>> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
>> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
>> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
>> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."
>
>How often did that reason show up in exit interviews for F-16A/B firecontrol
>computer OFP programmers, who were using JOVIAL J3B?  How often did it show
>up for F-16C/D programmers, who were using JOVIAL J73?  What happened to all
>those JOVIAL J73 programmers when F-16C/D switched to Ada in the mid-1990s?
>
>> 3) The people fleeing Ada are right - there were, at last survey 2
>> years ago, 5% Ada jobs.  An informal survey of the latest job market
>> puts it at around 1%.
>
>There appears to be an interesting assumption in there.  The assumption
>appears to be that Lockheed-Martin does not believe in retaining people who
>are proven performers, retooling and retraining them as necessary.  In the
>1960s and early 1970s, General Dynamics (and many other companies) did a
>massive internal retraining program to convert engineers in other
>disciplines into embedded software engineers, because they had a critical
>shortage of software engineers when software suddenly became important.
>
>So why, if LM were in fact intent on retaining people, would those people
>choose to flee?  Possibly, they perceive that LM is not their employer of
>choice?  Possibly, there are human relations problems?

Well, I once fled a CMS-2 opportunity for this reason.  Didn't leave
the entire "company" (US Navy), but avoided the project.  Since I am
gov., it is unlikely that I'll be the victim of some "wrong place,
wrong time" kind of firing / layoff / downsizing that you hear so much
about, but I have had the Navy leave me once already, when they closed
the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Indianapolis.  Being
skilled in current technology now has a prominant place in my
consideration of what I want to do.  I currently program in C++.  I
like Ada better, but am not in any way nervous about getting C++
experience, either.

Do a job search on career builder, using "Ada" and "software
engineer".  I got 62 hits for the _entire country_.  Same search with
C++ and "Software Engineer" gets 344 for the entire country.  About a
5X difference, although I thought it would be a lot bigger difference.
That's not the 5% or 1% described by the LM guys. Using dice.com, 28
hits, nationwide, for "ada" and "software engineer" together, most of
them by Lockheed Martin, BTW, and 451 for "C++" and "software
engineer" together on dice.com.  That's about the 5% the LM guys
quoted, although I thought they said 1% currently.  The dice results
definitely aren't a 100 to 1 ratio.

>> 4) They projected that they would have to go thru several code
>> overhauls to change compilers as Ada compiler providers either went
>> out of business, or dropped Ada compilers from their product line.
>
>When General Dynamics bought the JOVIAL J73 compilers for F-16C/D, they
>faced this very same set of problems, only worse.  THERE WERE NO
>PRODUCTION-QUALITY JOVIAL J73 COMPILERS AVAILABLE.  The ONLY bids to develop
>compilers came from small business.  See Judy Edwards and Barry Mowday's
>paper on how to buy a compiler from a small business.  As a result, GD
>bought the compilers INCLUDING ALL SOURCE CODE AND BUILD MATERIALS, so that
>they would continue to be able to build it, on whatever platform.

Over the life of the aircraft, processor targets are likely to change,
host computers may change too, and maybe a few other architecture
advancements will occur.  If you don't have a current compiler vendor
to modify the compiler to work with the new environment, you have to
switch compiler vendors.

>
>How does the fact that you are using C change this?  Vendors still go out of
>business, they still discontinue products.

C compiler vendors are much less likely to go out of business, or drop
the language from their supported products.  You're likely to be using
the C++ compiler with a C switch set, anyway, and the C++ language is
likely to be around for a really long time - longer than Ada in any
case.
>
>> They emphasized, over and over, that they are personally Ada zealots,
>> but from a business perspective, Ada for much of the JSF code would be
>> a boneheaded business decision.  4% of the operational flight program
>> will be in Ada, the remainder in that subset of C.  Program-wide,
>> including the support software such as trainers, Ada will acount for
>> approx 1%.
>
>Having been at GD/FW during F-16C/D, I am peripherally aware of the risks
>involved in airplane software development.  Part of your analysis had to be
>a risk assessment, of the relative risk of a Class A mishap caused by a
>software defect.  It is well-known from the industry that Ada vs. C by
>itself has significant impact on software defect density (Consult Pratt &
>Whitney for their experience: you buy engines from them).  What did your
>assessment of this factor show, given that the cost of a Class A mishap is
>many millions of dollars for an airplane, and about the same for the pilot?

Would be interesting to hear that info from LM.  I wonder how reliable
they consider this C subset, backed up by the source code analysis
tool, to be in comparison to the Ada langauge.  A C subset with an
analysis tool might just be very effective at preventing bugs, maybe
rivaling Ada.  It is pretty hard to believe, tho.

Dave Head

>
>--John
>

Re: employment with ada

[Steve]

"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
[snip]
>
> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."

In todays job market I'd be suprised to see many programmers turn down jobs
in any language, especially if the company will train.

I just read an article in ComputerWorld that implies it won't be long and we
won't need to worry about the programming language... it will be outsourced
to another country (speaking from an American perspective).

Steve
(The Duck)

[snip]
>
> Dave Head

Re: employment with ada

[Simon Wright]

Jeffrey Carter <spam@spam.com> writes:

> Richard Riehle wrote:
> > ... It [using a subset of C] will cost them more in the long run ...
> 
> Here we probably see the real business case. The longer and more
> expensive the software is, the more profit the company makes, under
> typical large defense software contracts.

The official position would no doubt be that this is not the case in
the UK, with fixed-price contracts. Believe that or not as you choose,
but a defence contractor recently had its nose put out of joint over
overspends & refusal by the government to fund them .. not, though,
software-related AFAIK.

Whether UK companies will accept future fixed-price development (vs
production) contracts remains to be seen. There are various flavours
of cost-incentive deals that have been used (eg, where the conpany
gets to pay a proportion of any overspend).

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Sun, 04 May 2003 04:55:01 GMT, "Steve" <nospam_steved94@attbi.com>
wrote:

>"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
>news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
>[snip]
>>
>> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
>> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
>> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
>> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
>> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."
>
>In todays job market I'd be suprised to see many programmers turn down jobs
>in any language, especially if the company will train.

Today's job market would seem to cut both ways - why would anyone want
to be saddled with no experience in the most common languages such as
C++ and Java?  If the person is assigned to a "dead language", and
_can_ find another job, why would they not take it?  After all, they
are assumedly attempting to build a career, and Ada is now "poetry
written in sanskrit."

>I just read an article in ComputerWorld that implies it won't be long and we
>won't need to worry about the programming language... it will be outsourced
>to another country (speaking from an American perspective).

Yes, with this nonsense going on, I wonder if "the economy" can ever
recover when our jobs are all going overseas.  The unions are right.
You can't sell an new Chevy to an auto worker laid off because of
competition from Toyota, nor can you sell a Mustang GT to a programmer
laid off 'cuz his source code is being written in India, or by Indians
working here on an H1B.  The Indians working here aren't going to buy
it either with their much-less-than-customary salary that they mostly
send back home anyway.

Incidentally, I am sitting here thinking about finally dropping
CompuServe (after being with them for 12 years) and going with
earthlink, possibly earthlink satellite service, since I find the help
desk either unavailable (its closed right now - what's with a help
desk closing AT ALL?) or incompetent.  Right now, for the last 3 days,
I've had big problems connecting.  And when something like this
happens on a weekend, it is a problem until someone wanders in on
Monday and kicks a server or something.  Podunk service has come to
CompuServe.

Also, I had a billing problem a few months ago, and the
obviously-Indian accented people could not tell me why my CompuServe
bill was suddenly $80 instead of $25.  They suggested calling my phone
company.  Clueless.  I went around with these people for maybe 45
minutes, hung up, called again later, got someone obviously American
(sounded Texan, actually), and I got the info I wanted within 10
minutes.  American industry can "outsource" their work all they want,
but that doesn't mean they're going to get competent work, or anyone
familiar with the way things are done on this continent.

Dave Head

>Steve
>(The Duck)
>
>[snip]
>>
>> Dave Head

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Well, in fairness, remember that the DoD types have to deal with programs
that are going to run on for perhaps 30 or more years. They have to be
concerned about things like long-term viability and without a huge installed
base of users at the moment, Ada looks weaker in this regard than does
something like C. They don't want to be stuck out there in 10 years looking
for support for a language and not finding it. Many DoD types are still
looking at systems developed with Jovial and these days its hard to find
anyone who still knows that Jovial is a programming language, much less
knows how to use it or supports it with a compiler.

OTOH, remember that most software doesn't live this long and so it is less
risky for many projects to select a niche language. It means that Ada is a
"safe" choice for many projects and can be considered for lots of
development jobs within a company. Look to build things in Ada wherever
possible and then when the big ticket items like the JSF come along, the
responsible parties will feel safer in selecting Ada.

MDC

DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
>
> I understand it.  I hate it, but I understand it.  The road to Ada, in
> 2003, now leads to a garbage pit.
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Sat, 03 May 2003 12:17:31 -0700, Richard Riehle
<richard@adaworks.com> wrote:

>DPH wrote:
>
>> At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
>> Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.
>>
>> Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
>> strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
>> the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
>> critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
>> subset of C.
>
>Reading through the list of reasons given for abanonding Ada in JSF,
>I cannot agree with their decision.   There are plenty of opportunities
>for Ada training outside the university environment, some of it of
>better quality than they would get in college classes.

Yes, and training people is counterproductive when you're exit
interviews are turning up reasons like "I don't want to be stuck with
experience only in a dead language."

>The LMCO programmers are, as with any other kind of employee,
>expected to work with the tools and resources appropriate to the
>job.   Looking for another job is secondary to that.

Its not secondary to the person looking for another job because they
fear personal obsolescence.

>The focus of the JSF effort is to produce the best quality software
>possible for the aircraft.

Not true for any business.  The focus of any company is to make money.

>Instead, they cobble together a set of
>restrictions for C, restrictions we can be assured will be ignored
>over the lifetime of the project.

They're using an automated tool to enforce them, so ignoring them will
be difficult.

>Some Ada compiler publishers have vanished.   Many of those
>were simply acquired by Ada compiler publishers that still exist.  Some
>should have gone out of business a long time ago.   A few are hanging
>on by a slim margin, and this decision does not help.  The hardware
>vendor compilers (HP, Tandem, etc.) actually used Alsys (now
>Aonix) compilers with their own label so the list of compilers is
>smaller, but the original developers are still around.

Dec never made an Ada 95 for VMS.  I just learned that Rational Rose
RealTime doesn't speak Ada.  What's with that?  If you can't generate
code automatically from one of the most popular UML tools in
existence, what does that say?

>Though the LMCO presenters may consider themselves "zealots,"
>and though they think this was a "boneheaded" business decision,

"Boneheaded" was my word, not theirs, BTW.  They love Ada, but think
using it would be counterproductive to profits in the long run, that's
all.

Its the BetaMax - VHS scenario all over again.  Being technically
superior doesn't really count for much nowdays.

>if the reasons they gave are the real reasons, it was a wrong
>decision.

Doesn't sound like it to me.

If they really can't find programmers, which is a common complaint
heard from many sources, so is probably true, then that's a valid
factor.

If they really do lose people simply by assigning them to Ada, then
that's a factor.

If Ada compiler vendors are going out of business, 1 by 1, as time
goes by, and unnneccesary source code conversions will be required
simply for this purpose, then that's a factor.

Take all the factors together, and it appears to make sense.

>It will cost them more in the long run,  they will be
>fighting with quality issues in C they would not encounter with
>Ada, and the programmers they are trying to retain with C will
>leave just as quickly if not more so than if they were using Ada.

If you don't know the particulars of the 172 C language restrictions,
nor the tool used to enforce them and check the code for other errors,
I don't see how you can say that.  I doubt there are any studies
outside of LM comparing the error rates between Ada and their own
particular way of doing C.  This C strategy may indeed be close enough
to Ada in error avoidance to be superior to Ada when considering the
stated drawbacks that would be incurred by using Ada.

I always condemned the short-sighted idea that companies must be able
to hire people that already program in the language of interest
instead of training them, but when they leave because they fear
obsolescense, then that is a real problem that can't be ignored.

>It is interesting  to me that, as I see DoD contractors making the error
>of moving away from Ada toward inferior technologies, non-DoD
>organizations are discovering its benefits (some of them are not
>in the U.S.) and enjoying success with it.   This is one more example
>of the old phrase, "grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory."

Assumedly foreign programmers will feel less threatened by being a
programmer in a "dead langauge" if indeed it is not dead in their
country.  The might just have the freedom to get down to business and
learn it well.

Dave Head

>Richard Riehle

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

We can all say "I think this is the wrong decision made for the wrong
reasons", but that doesn't really help change the situation. When the bulk
of the world that is doing embedded programming (such as what is on the JSF)
is doing it in C or C++ it gets *really* hard for the decision makers in
LMCO and elsewhere to spit into the wind and say "I'll risk this billion
dollar project, the 30 year future of the aircraft and my professional
career on a language that is being widely ignored by my counterparts in the
private sector..."

The way to get Ada into things like the JSF is to eliminate the objections
that get raised. Whether it is accurate or not to say that no universities
are teaching Ada doesn't really matter. It *is* accurate to say that the
overwhelming bulk of universities are using something other than Ada for
most of their courses. It may not be accurate to say that there are no Ada
programmers out there or Ada vendors out there or Ada jobs out there, but it
*is* accurate to say that there are lots more C/C++ programmers, vendors and
jobs out there. And its not like its even a horse race. In real time,
embedded work Ada is almost not even above the noise level.

The way to fix that is to concentrate on building Ada software in areas
where there is less to worry about with respect to long term support.
Sideline projects, hacker work, entrepreneurial endeavors, "free" software,
etc. Get it in use in everyday fields and then the big-ticket projects won't
have so much objection. Build some of the things we see every day in Ada and
that will create jobs. (An office suite? An accounting package? A web
browser? Desktop utilities? A database? What do you see running on your
computer right now?)

If there are improvements in Ada that give it more leverage - such as
libraries, a standard GUI, a database, etc. - it makes it more attractive to
develop everyday applications in it. If we use Ada for more of these sorts
of things, it will start building that necessary base to insure its future.
Otherwise, the LMCO guys are making the right decision.

MDC



Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3EB415CB.6D97B14D@adaworks.com...
>
> It is interesting  to me that, as I see DoD contractors making the error
> of moving away from Ada toward inferior technologies, non-DoD
> organizations are discovering its benefits (some of them are not
> in the U.S.) and enjoying success with it.   This is one more example
> of the old phrase, "grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory."
>


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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Alex Gibson]

"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:4mo7bvc2n70k6eikm3muu2965nbo3m77ov@4ax.com...
> On 1 May 2003 17:36:30 -0700, crebralfix@angelfire.com (tom) wrote:

>
> I've just returned from the Software Technology Conference, a large
> conference and trade show for DoD types, held annually in Salt Lake
> City.  What I saw there leads me to say this:
>
> While Ada is truely a superior language, I believe you should rethink
> getting into it on anything above a hobby basis.
>
> At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
> Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.
>
> Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
> strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
> the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
> critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
> subset of C.
>
> The safety critical subset of C is C with 172 restrictions, augmented
> by a source code analyzer to look out for problems.
>
> Why give up on Ada?  They actually did a study - this isn't just
> someone's personal preference or prejudice.  They found:
>
> 1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
> qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
> of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
> source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.
>

Okay I'm not in the US but
the university I'm at still teaches Ada.
Mostly to graduate students.
http://www.eng.uts.edu.au/CurrentStudents/Postgraduate/postgraduate_subject_descriptions/49212.html
http://www.eng.uts.edu.au/CurrentStudents/Postgraduate/postgraduate_subject_descriptions/49234.html
http://www.uts.edu.au/div/publications/subjects/49234.html

Alex

Re: employment with ada

[Mark Lorenzen]

"John R. Strohm" <strohm@airmail.net> writes:

> You are correct, your employer has to apply on your behalf.  The first
> requirement is generally US citizenship.

Ah crap... What about a "NATO citizenship"? Will that be a benefit?

- Mark Lorenzen

Re: employment with ada

[tmoran]

>something like C. They don't want to be stuck out there in 10 years looking
>for support for a language and not finding it.
  I don't understand this argument.  "C" is _not_ a long lasting language.
There was K&R C, then ANSI C, then C++, then Java, then C#.  How many
colleges are today teaching K&R C?  How many K&R C compilers, or their
vendors, are still around for 10 or 20 year old "C" programs?  Where the
project's "C compiler" has been carefully preserved (probably because the
code depends on its known unique idiosyncracies) how many of today's new
hires understand it?  How many want to add "experience in Defunct Corp's
K&R C compiler" to their resumes?

Re: employment with ada

[Hyman Rosen]

Richard Riehle wrote:
 > Instead, they cobble together a set of restrictions for C

How is this different from SPARK?

Re: employment with ada

[P S Norby]

"DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:uv19bv0tgi7d479b32vs1uutdp4u2uoo98@4ax.com...

>  C++ programmers,  who can basically program
> C by default, are as numerous as weeds in the garden.

That's great... if what you want is weeds!

Re: employment with ada

[Richard Riehle]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:

> Richard Riehle wrote:
> >
> > ... It [using a subset of C] will cost them more in the long run ...
>
> Here we probably see the real business case. The longer and more
> expensive the software is, the more profit the company makes, under
> typical large defense software contracts.

I would be the last person to attribute such nefarious motives to a
company as respectable as LMCO.   My guess is that those who
made the decision to abandon Ada did so  with the best of intentions,
with intellectual honesty, and with honorable expectations.   I know
many of the LMCO software engineers and respect their business
ethics.   This does not change the fact that I believe they came to
a wrong conclusion regarding Ada.

Also, and very important, I believe that they will strive to do the
very best software they can using the tools they have selected.  We
can disagree about conclusions without casting doubts about someone's
honor.

Richard Riehle

Re: employment with ada

[Richard Riehle]

DPH wrote:

> On Sat, 03 May 2003 12:17:31 -0700, Richard Riehle
> <richard@adaworks.com> wrote:
>
>
> >Reading through the list of reasons given for abanonding Ada in JSF,
> >I cannot agree with their decision.   There are plenty of opportunities
> >for Ada training outside the university environment, some of it of
> >better quality than they would get in college classes.
>
> Yes, and training people is counterproductive when you're exit
> interviews are turning up reasons like "I don't want to be stuck with
> experience only in a dead language."

I have trained a lot of LMCO programmers over the years.  From time
to time, I have heard one of them grumble about Ada.   Most of the
time, they have been quite positive about Ada.

> >The LMCO programmers are, as with any other kind of employee,
> >expected to work with the tools and resources appropriate to the
> >job.   Looking for another job is secondary to that.
>
> Its not secondary to the person looking for another job because they
> fear personal obsolescence.

An irrational fear, of course.  It is the responsibilty of management to
deal with such fears.   The reality is that any technology they might
select will be obsolete at some point, including C.

> >The focus of the JSF effort is to produce the best quality software
> >possible for the aircraft.
>
> Not true for any business.  The focus of any company is to make money.

Au contraire.  In this case, the focus is to build the best quality aircraft
possible.   Knowing the engineers at LMCO as I do, I have not doubt
they will do everything possible to do just that, regardless of what
programming language they are required to use.

If this were a commerical software product, I might agree with you
in some measure.  However,  any project that has as its primary
focus, "making money" is doomed to failure.    One must focus
on building the correct product correctly.   They money will
follow.

> >Instead, they cobble together a set of
> >restrictions for C, restrictions we can be assured will be ignored
> >over the lifetime of the project.
>
> They're using an automated tool to enforce them, so ignoring them will
> be difficult.

I'm glad you countered this point.   It highlights the widespread
miconception
that Ada is about what one cannot do rather what one can do.  This is a
problem not easily overcome when trying to compare C to Ada.

There are many other characteristics of Ada that lead to quality besides
those
that seem, at first, restrictive.    Some of these support what Grady Booch
calls, the "ilities."    For example, let's consider traceability.
Well-formed
Ada code tends to be easy to trace from unit to unit, in part because of the
strict visibility rules.  The fundamental language constructs, from separate
compilation, through child library units provide a structural integrity not
easily achieved in a low-level language such as C.   More trivial, but
important features such as named association provide a level of readability
that one might be able to emulate with automated tools, but not as well
as when they are integrated into the language.

Putting aside the newer features of Ada such as protected types, inheritance,

and dynamic binding, since these are not as useful in safety-critical
avionics,
one cannot ignore the other features of Ada that contribute to a powerful
capability for project-level code reuse.

Yes.  One can certainly constrain (even cripple) C, so it is a little bit
safer than its standard language description.   One cannot promote any
construct in C so it will correspond to the built-in capabilities an Ada
designer or programmer can enjoy.

> >Some Ada compiler publishers have vanished.   Many of those
> >were simply acquired by Ada compiler publishers that still exist.  Some
> >should have gone out of business a long time ago.   A few are hanging
> >on by a slim margin, and this decision does not help.  The hardware
> >vendor compilers (HP, Tandem, etc.) actually used Alsys (now
> >Aonix) compilers with their own label so the list of compilers is
> >smaller, but the original developers are still around.
>
> Dec never made an Ada 95 for VMS.  I just learned that Rational Rose
> RealTime doesn't speak Ada.  What's with that?  If you can't generate
> code automatically from one of the most popular UML tools in
> existence, what does that say?

There are people using Rational Rose and Ada together quite
comfortably.   Also, Rational is not the only game in town.  Aonix
will soon announce a new set of tools, and they are still very much
in the Ada business.   Aonix also has a UML tool, Software Through
Pictures.   I recently talked with the President of Green Hills and
learned they are doing really well with the Ada component of their
business.  Also, they support an excellent inter-language development
capability along with a pretty slick development environment.  Some
of my clients are using Green Hills quite happily.

There are certainly some excellent Ada embedded development
options out there.   Even GNAT, public as it might be, is currently
serving in the embedded marketplace.   ICC and DDC-I both continue
to produce good products for embedded systems.   If it is not sufficient
to be able to select from a least six good compiler publishers, how
many do we need?

> Its the BetaMax - VHS scenario all over again.  Being technically
> superior doesn't really count for much nowdays.

I have heard this argument before.   When we are building safety-critical,
high-integrity weapon systems, technically superior should count.  This
is not a mass-market consumer product.  People's lives depend on the
end product.

> >if the reasons they gave are the real reasons, it was a wrong
> >decision.
>
> Doesn't sound like it to me.

We will have to agree to disagree.

> If they really can't find programmers, which is a common complaint
> heard from many sources, so is probably true, then that's a valid
> factor.

Not a good reason.   The programmers are out there, right now looking
for jobs.   I know a lot of unemployed programmers at present.  This
is am employer's market.  And those programmers will write code
in any language they are given as long as they have a paycheck.

> If they really do lose people simply by assigning them to Ada, then
> that's a factor.

I know lots of programmers, including LMCO programmers, who are
delighted to be programming in Ada.

> If Ada compiler vendors are going out of business, 1 by 1, as time
> goes by, and unnneccesary source code conversions will be required
> simply for this purpose, then that's a factor.

Actually, when looks at this issue, it becomes clear that they are not
necessarily all going of business.   In some cases they are consolidating,
in others diversifying.  Rational began life as an Ada company.  They
still have Ada customers and would be happy to continue to have
Ada customers if those customers buy their products.   This is the
real case of a company being in business to make money.   However,
they began their Ada business with the combined goal of creating
a quality product and making a profit.    They now have a quality
product.  They cannot support the product if they have not customers.

When a potential customer such as LMCO decides to abandon Ada
for one of its critical projects (not all of LMCO has abandoned
Ada), it helps to fulfill its own vision of Ada in decline.   Also,
some Ada compiler publishers are enjoying an upturn in success
with Ada, perhaps at the expense of those who are not providing
as much support as their prospective clients might expect.

> >It will cost them more in the long run,  they will be
> >fighting with quality issues in C they would not encounter with
> >Ada, and the programmers they are trying to retain with C will
> >leave just as quickly if not more so than if they were using Ada.
>
> If you don't know the particulars of the 172 C language restrictions,
> nor the tool used to enforce them and check the code for other errors,
> I don't see how you can say that.  I doubt there are any studies
> outside of LM comparing the error rates between Ada and their own
> particular way of doing C.  This C strategy may indeed be close enough
> to Ada in error avoidance to be superior to Ada when considering the
> stated drawbacks that would be incurred by using Ada.

As noted earlier, this is a shortsighted view of the benefits of Ada.  It
presupposes that Ada is valuable for what it restricts rather than for
what it enables.   Taking that view, C cannot begin to approach Ada
for what it enables.   Also, even with automated error avoidance,
it is difficult to take a language in which the default is "unsafe" and
make it more safe.   As for the "stated drawbacks" I have commented
on these earlier and consider them wrongly concluded.

> I always condemned the short-sighted idea that companies must be able
> to hire people that already program in the language of interest
> instead of training them, but when they leave because they fear
> obsolescense, then that is a real problem that can't be ignored.

In this we agree.

Richard Riehle

Re: employment with ada

[Richard Riehle]

Hyman Rosen wrote:

> Richard Riehle wrote:
>  > Instead, they cobble together a set of restrictions for C
>
> How is this different from SPARK?

Excellent question.

When one looks at Ada (or SPARK) as a tool that simply constrains
what can be done rather than tool that enables things to get done, there

is no difference at all.

Sadly, too many people take this restrictive view of Ada.   It is far
more
than that.   In another post, I make a few points about this, but to
keep
this short, let me emphasize that Ada is not about what one cannot do
but what one can do.   It is what one can do that is important.

Richard Riehle

Re: employment with ada

[Richard Riehle]

Hyman Rosen wrote:

> Richard Riehle wrote:
>  > Instead, they cobble together a set of restrictions for C
>
> How is this different from SPARK?

I already responded to this in another message, but a short
follow-up.   SPARK is also an enabler.   The SPARK
examiner is not just a set of "don't do that" rules.  When
combined with Ada, SPARK is also an enabler rather
than a disabler.

Richard Riehle

Re: employment with ada

[Jeffrey Carter]

Richard Riehle wrote:
> Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> 
>>Richard Riehle wrote:
>>
>>>... It [using a subset of C] will cost them more in the long run ...
>>
>>Here we probably see the real business case. The longer and more
>>expensive the software is, the more profit the company makes, under
>>typical large defense software contracts.
> 
> I would be the last person to attribute such nefarious motives to a
> company as respectable as LMCO.   My guess is that those who
> made the decision to abandon Ada did so  with the best of intentions,
> with intellectual honesty, and with honorable expectations.   I know
> many of the LMCO software engineers and respect their business
> ethics.   This does not change the fact that I believe they came to
> a wrong conclusion regarding Ada.
> 
> Also, and very important, I believe that they will strive to do the
> very best software they can using the tools they have selected.  We
> can disagree about conclusions without casting doubts about someone's
> honor.

I have seen too many large defense contracts in the US, with a number of 
large defense contractors, in which everything is done to make the SW as 
expensive as possible, and efforts to make the SW less expensive are not 
allowed to succeed, to attribute it to anything other than a well 
developed ability by these companies to find the saddle point between 
maximizing profit and not antagonizing the customer too much.

These companies ARE in business to make money, and the quality of the 
product is only of importance as it affects their profit. It can only be 
because the customer does not know any better that this conduct is 
allowed to continue.

It may be that those who reached the decision to use C had the best of 
intentions and believe they made the correct choice, but given the level 
of FUD in their presentation I have my doubts (NO universities in the US 
teaching Ada?). I suspect that if the study had been seen going in the 
direction of recommending the use of Ada pressure would have been 
brought to reach a different conclusion.

I'm sorry that I cannot be as optimistic about this as you, but 
experience has made me cynical.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: employment with ada

[Wesley Groleau]

> Dec never made an Ada 95 for VMS.  I just learned that Rational Rose
> RealTime doesn't speak Ada.  What's with that?  If you can't generate
> code automatically from one of the most popular UML tools in
> existence, what does that say?

I last worked on VMS when DEC Ada 3.0 came out.  It was Ada 83
but it had and "abstract" feature that had some similarities
to the abstract constructs in Ada 95.  No, DEC did not make an
Ada 95 for VMS, but they did hire ACT to make it for them and
they put their "label" on it.

Rose _does_ generate Ada.  I have not seen whether it's "good"
Ada.  I kind of doubt it, since the general approach of Rose
is _obviously_ oriented toward C++

Re: employment with ada

[Wesley Groleau]

> intentions and believe they made the correct choice, but given the level 
> of FUD in their presentation I have my doubts (NO universities in the US 
> teaching Ada?). I suspect that if the study had been seen going in the 

I thought FUD stood for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

The above is Fibbing, Untruths, and Deception.

Re: employment with ada

[William J. Thomsa]

> I've just returned from the Software Technology Conference, a large
> conference and trade show for DoD types, held annually in Salt Lake
> City.  What I saw there leads me to say this:
>
> While Ada is truely a superior language, I believe you should rethink
> getting into it on anything above a hobby basis.
>
> At the conference, one of the 40 minute talks was given by Lockheed
> Martin on the Fate of Ada in the Joint Strike Fighter project.
>
> Starting out by saying that they are all personally Ada zealots, and
> strongly believe the langauge to be superior to anything else around,
> the company was forced, by business realities, to do their safety
> critical software in the Joint Strike Fighter in a safety critical
> subset of C.
>
> The safety critical subset of C is C with 172 restrictions, augmented
> by a source code analyzer to look out for problems.
>
> Why give up on Ada?  They actually did a study - this isn't just
> someone's personal preference or prejudice.  They found:
>
> 1) No college in this country is teaching Ada.  There may be some
> qualifiers on that that I don't remember, such as "as a major portion
> of their program", or something like that, but in short there isn't a
> source of new Ada programmers, nor is there likely to be.
>
> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."
>
> 3) The people fleeing Ada are right - there were, at last survey 2
> years ago, 5% Ada jobs.  An informal survey of the latest job market
> puts it at around 1%.
>
> 4) They projected that they would have to go thru several code
> overhauls to change compilers as Ada compiler providers either went
> out of business, or dropped Ada compilers from their product line.
>
> They emphasized, over and over, that they are personally Ada zealots,
> but from a business perspective, Ada for much of the JSF code would be
> a boneheaded business decision.  4% of the operational flight program
> will be in Ada, the remainder in that subset of C.  Program-wide,
> including the support software such as trainers, Ada will acount for
> approx 1%.
>
> I understand it.  I hate it, but I understand it.  The road to Ada, in
> 2003, now leads to a garbage pit.
>
> I was about to say that the only hope to do Ada at all in the future
> might be working for the government, but I already do that, and see
> that the government has two problems.  These are:
>
> 1) The government is attempting to contract everything out.  If you
> are in software at all in the government, you probably have a future
> as a contract monitor.
>
> 2) Talk around where I work, where they actually do Ada, is toward
> moving to C or C++.  I don't think we've done any Lockheed-Martin-like
> studies, but those who think themselves futurists seem to be saying
> this more and more.
>
> Much as I hate to say it, I think Ada is dead.  If Lockheed Martin
> can't make a business case for choosing Ada, who can?  What project
> would still choose it, and why?  I can't think of anyone who could
> justify swimming upstream like that.
>
> Anyone?
>
> Dave Head

C with 172 restrictions, what does that leave about 5 features and a "goto"
statement? Talk about being stuck on a job with a dead language, gee won't
those programmers be worth their weight in gold.

Compared to Ada, 'C' has always been restricted.  In 'C' I have that
incredibly heavy weight abstraction mechanism, the function, Oh and lets not
forget that other architectural powerhouse, the file. In Ada I actually have
to choose which features I'm going to bring to bear on my architecture. The
features I get in Ada (which are enforced by gee, a compiler) I will have to
acheive and enforce outside of the 'C' language. And with what, code
checking tools, methodologies, UML, please..., any of us with a few gray
hairs knows just how, with lots of cheap 'C' programmers and plenty of
debugging time.

The arguments that I've heard against Ada are the same arguments I've been
hearing for 20 years. First of all anyone can learn Ada, and with a little
in-house training you can actually bring most developers around to your way
of thinking.  Second , since 1986 good Ada compilers have always been and
always will  be available. And third, well, who cares, LMCO has made a
decision and they are going to have to live with it.

I just hope the JSF project gathers some good metrics, and then I hope
someone eventually compares them to the F22 project!

William J. Thomas

Re: employment with ada

[Anders Wirzenius]

"AG" <ang@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message news:6tKsa.53683$mZ4.625536@news.xtra.co.nz...
> "Anders Wirzenius" <anders.wirzenius@pp.qnet.fi> wrote in message
> news:7VJsa.29$np2.7@read3.inet.fi...
> >
> > I am in pretty much the same situation. The core business of the company
> is not software development - >hence, there is no formal programming policy.
> 
> Unfortunately, that also means that the programming/software developement
> isn't too important for the company. Which means that whatever happens
> there won't have a huge impact on the industry as a whole.
> 
> Yes, it's certainly a good idea to try it anyway - any little bit helps.
> But, as soon as you run into some production requirements
> for a mostly software-oriented environment (like source-control
> for instance?) it's becoming quite a bit more difficult to do that.
> 
> 
I was not defending the company, merely stating the (sad) facts. 
With my 10 year background in software and non-software quality
systems I second your opinion and emphasize myself a proper 
"back stage working" in every work environment.

Anders

Re: employment with ada

[Anders Wirzenius]

"Steve" <nospam_steved94@attbi.com> wrote in message news:F21ta.460707$OV.449382@rwcrnsc54...
> I just read an article in ComputerWorld that implies it won't be long and we
> won't need to worry about the programming language... it will be outsourced
> to another country (speaking from an American perspective).
>
> Steve
> (The Duck)

... which opens an excellent opportunity for Ada lecturers to promote Ada:
travel to these countries (India, China?) and start teaching Ada. The language should not be a problem. Many of us
Non-Native-Englishmen are excellent listeners in English, the pronunciation may asks for attention before you get used ;-)

Outsourcing requires a level of understanding also from the outsourcer, especially if you want to make some minor enhancements in
the acquired product inhouse. By ordering the software as Ada software you don't loose all the demand for Ada expert knowledge at
home.

Anders

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Sun, 04 May 2003 22:28:37 -0500, Wesley Groleau
<wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote:

>
>> Dec never made an Ada 95 for VMS.  I just learned that Rational Rose
>> RealTime doesn't speak Ada.  What's with that?  If you can't generate
>> code automatically from one of the most popular UML tools in
>> existence, what does that say?
>
>I last worked on VMS when DEC Ada 3.0 came out.  It was Ada 83
>but it had and "abstract" feature that had some similarities
>to the abstract constructs in Ada 95.  No, DEC did not make an
>Ada 95 for VMS, but they did hire ACT to make it for them and
>they put their "label" on it.
>
>Rose _does_ generate Ada.

Rose RealTime is what is of interest to me, and, from the horse's
mouth at the Rational booth at the Software Technology Conference last
week in Salt Lake City, it doesn't generate code automatically in Ada
- just (C? C++? I forget, but definitely not Ada.)


>I have not seen whether it's "good"
>Ada.  I kind of doubt it, since the general approach of Rose
>is _obviously_ oriented toward C++

And Rational is supposedly _heavily_ into Ada.  And their tool doesn't
do RT Ada?  Not a good sign.

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Mark Lorenzen <mark.lorenzen@ofir.dk> wrote in message
news:m31xzewwuz.fsf@niflheim.malonet...
>
> Ah crap... What about a "NATO citizenship"? Will that be a benefit?
>

While NATO is in on some of the US military secrets, they are certainly not
in on all of them. Most countries are reluctant to trust someone who has
foreign allegiance with their serious secrets, so it isn't just a US thing.
I doubt, for example, that China would give me a security clearance and
allow me to work on their missile programs.

Anyway, don't rely on military programs to provide Ada jobs. They are
increasingly of a "follow the crowd" philosophy. *Create* a job in Ada
instead.

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Robert A Duff]

Jeffrey Carter <spam@spam.com> writes:

>...everything is done to make the SW as
> expensive as possible

One does not have to try hard to make software expensive.
It happens naturally, without any effort.

;-)

- Bob

Re: employment with ada

[Ed Falis]

I believe Rose RealTime is a different tool than Rose.  If it's what I'm
thinking it is, it was acquired from a Canadian company (or as part
of the company) and had never been fitted with an Ada adaptation layer
or code generation. By the time Rational acquired it (late 90's?), they
were already winding down on Ada.

Just my recollection.

- Ed

Re: employment with ada

[Simon Wright]

DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com> writes:

> Dec never made an Ada 95 for VMS.  I just learned that Rational Rose
> RealTime doesn't speak Ada.  What's with that?  If you can't
> generate code automatically from one of the most popular UML tools
> in existence, what does that say?

Rose Realtime and Rose are not the same tool. It's Rose that's
popular, and it has Ada support. I-Logix have Ada support, I'm pretty
sure. Artisan have Ada support. Not sure about Aonix (you could roll
your own with their toolset, though).

Re: employment with ada

[Simon Wright]

"Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> writes:

>                                                     In real time,
> embedded work Ada is almost not even above the noise level.

> If there are improvements in Ada that give it more leverage - such
> as libraries, a standard GUI, a database, etc. - it makes it more
> attractive to develop everyday applications in it. If we use Ada for
> more of these sorts of things, it will start building that necessary
> base to insure its future.  Otherwise, the LMCO guys are making the
> right decision.

Does realtime, embedded work involve GUIs? databases?

How much safety-critical embedded avionics software gets written in C?

Re: employment with ada

[P S Norby]

----- Original Message -----
From: "DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: Re: employment with ada



> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."
>

Given that JSF is the biggest DoD contract ever, and will last several
decades ('til 2050, according to someone on the "Nova" program on PBS about
the competition between Boeing & LMCO), one would think that that would be
enough prestige and security (if there is such a thing these days) to
overcome some programmers' doubts about language.

And given that LMCO receives several hundred (or thousand?) resumes for each
posted position, you would think there would be more than enough who are
willing to do the job in Ada.  (and how about screening out the non-willing
_before_ hiring/training them?)

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Mon, 05 May 2003 12:47:36 GMT, Ed Falis <falis@adelphia.net> wrote:

>I believe Rose RealTime is a different tool than Rose.  If it's what I'm
>thinking it is, it was acquired from a Canadian company (or as part
>of the company) and had never been fitted with an Ada adaptation layer
>or code generation. By the time Rational acquired it (late 90's?), they
>were already winding down on Ada.
>
>Just my recollection.
>
>- Ed

That "winding down" part is the problem.  One of the biggest Ada
boosters shouldn't be in a "Winding Down" mode for the langauge.

Its "Rational" to be concerned about one's future if one's only
experience is in Ada.

Dave Head

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Mon, 05 May 2003 18:41:38 GMT, "P S Norby" <psnorby@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com>
>Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
>Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 11:03 AM
>Subject: Re: employment with ada
>
>
>
>> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
>> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
>> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
>> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
>> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."
>>
>
>Given that JSF is the biggest DoD contract ever, and will last several
>decades ('til 2050, according to someone on the "Nova" program on PBS about
>the competition between Boeing & LMCO), one would think that that would be
>enough prestige and security (if there is such a thing these days) to
>overcome some programmers' doubts about language.
>
>And given that LMCO receives several hundred (or thousand?) resumes for each
>posted position, you would think there would be more than enough who are
>willing to do the job in Ada.  (and how about screening out the non-willing
>_before_ hiring/training them?)

Any given Ada-speaking-only SW Engineer could and should be concerned
about:

1) Getting laid off in spite of the hot project - "stuff" can happen.

2) Wanting the freedom to decide they don't want to work at the same
place their whole career, and maybe live in some other state besides
Texas or Georgia or wherever.

3) Maybe wanting to not get underpaid because the employer knows you
don't have much of an option to go anywhere else because this, at 10
years later, is the only Ada island, or maybe one of the 3 remaining
Ada islands (and the other 2 are in places where it goes down to 38
below zero in the winter) in the country.

4) Maybe just plain getting tired of Ada programming but not being
able to leave with the narrow skillset.

Dave Head

Re: employment with ada

[Ed Falis]

On Mon, 05 May 2003 16:19:40 -0400
DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote:

> That "winding down" part is the problem.  One of the biggest Ada
> boosters shouldn't be in a "Winding Down" mode for the langauge.

It would be extremely naive to think that Ada was ever anything more
than a means to an end for Rational.

Re: employment with ada

[William J. Thomsa]

> Any given Ada-speaking-only SW Engineer could and should be concerned
> about:
>
> 1) Getting laid off in spite of the hot project - "stuff" can happen.
>
> 2) Wanting the freedom to decide they don't want to work at the same
> place their whole career, and maybe live in some other state besides
> Texas or Georgia or wherever.
>
> 3) Maybe wanting to not get underpaid because the employer knows you
> don't have much of an option to go anywhere else because this, at 10
> years later, is the only Ada island, or maybe one of the 3 remaining
> Ada islands (and the other 2 are in places where it goes down to 38
> below zero in the winter) in the country.
>
> 4) Maybe just plain getting tired of Ada programming but not being
> able to leave with the narrow skillset.
>
> Dave Head

Its not LMCO's job to worry about the marketability of their programming
talent. Its the programmers responsibility to keep themselves up to date
with the latest craze (like XML, C#), and to keep themselves marketable
(like I have by learning all of those things at home, on my own time).

It's LMCO's job to provide the country with the best weapon systems in the
world.

The reasons they did not select Ada are bogus, they should just come right
out and tell everyone that its due to program managements short sightedness
and be done with it.

WJT

Re: employment with ada

[DPH]

On Mon, 5 May 2003 19:06:02 -0400, "William J. Thomsa"
<wjthomas@wcvt.com> wrote:

>
>> Any given Ada-speaking-only SW Engineer could and should be concerned
>> about:
>>
>> 1) Getting laid off in spite of the hot project - "stuff" can happen.
>>
>> 2) Wanting the freedom to decide they don't want to work at the same
>> place their whole career, and maybe live in some other state besides
>> Texas or Georgia or wherever.
>>
>> 3) Maybe wanting to not get underpaid because the employer knows you
>> don't have much of an option to go anywhere else because this, at 10
>> years later, is the only Ada island, or maybe one of the 3 remaining
>> Ada islands (and the other 2 are in places where it goes down to 38
>> below zero in the winter) in the country.
>>
>> 4) Maybe just plain getting tired of Ada programming but not being
>> able to leave with the narrow skillset.
>>
>> Dave Head
>
>Its not LMCO's job to worry about the marketability of their programming
>talent.

No, their employees are doing that for them - and some are leaving.
Their job is to worry about why those employees are leaving, and
hopefully stop it.  They think their strategy to dump Ada will work in
their favor.

>Its the programmers responsibility to keep themselves up to date

Which provides them with the reason to leave.  They can sit in the
basement and create the equivalent of Quake III in C++ but unless they
actually market it, they don't, on paper, have any C++ experience -
they have Ada experience because they work at LM on a project that
uses Ada.

>with the latest craze (like XML, C#), and to keep themselves marketable
>(like I have by learning all of those things at home, on my own time).
>
>It's LMCO's job to provide the country with the best weapon systems in the
>world.

They're going to try it via retaining employees and training them in
good SW engineering, while using a subset of C...

>The reasons they did not select Ada are bogus,

Well, I have to believe them, because that's what they said, and it
sounds pretty plausible to me.

>they should just come right
>out and tell everyone that its due to program managements short sightedness
>and be done with it.

Nevertheless, an extremely large defense contractor, that
traditionally builds very good warplanes, has elected to attempt the
next one in a subset of C.  Whatever the reason, Ada has failed to be
chosen by a bunch of people that have been programming in it for quite
some time.  They actually _switched_ languages to go with this C
subset.  It would seem they have the most experience and business
knowledge to choose the best way to accomplish their goals.  I can't
believe this is some whim, or nefarious plot.  I think its real.  I
think there's a good chance of other traditional Ada users following
suit.  That will cause a further decline in the demand for compilers
and other tools that speak Ada, so the downward spiral is likely to
accelerate.  It sucks, but that's the way its looking right now...

Dave Head

>WJT
>

Re: employment with ada

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen]

DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com> writes:

> On Mon, 05 May 2003 18:41:38 GMT, "P S Norby" <psnorby@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "DPH" <rally2xs@compuserve.com>
> >Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
> >Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 11:03 AM
> >Subject: Re: employment with ada
> >
> >
> >
> >> 2) If they hire someone and train them in Ada, and designate them to
> >> program in Ada, all too often that person thinks to himself, "I'm
> >> learning a dead langauge, with nowhere to go if this project fails or
> >> completes" and the next thing you know, that person is in an exit
> >> interview, looking for a job that will provide "marketable skills."
> >>
> >
> >Given that JSF is the biggest DoD contract ever, and will last several
> >decades ('til 2050, according to someone on the "Nova" program on PBS about
> >the competition between Boeing & LMCO), one would think that that would be
> >enough prestige and security (if there is such a thing these days) to
> >overcome some programmers' doubts about language.
> >
> >And given that LMCO receives several hundred (or thousand?) resumes for each
> >posted position, you would think there would be more than enough who are
> >willing to do the job in Ada.  (and how about screening out the non-willing
> >_before_ hiring/training them?)
> 
> Any given Ada-speaking-only SW Engineer could and should be concerned
> about:
> 
> 1) Getting laid off in spite of the hot project - "stuff" can happen.
> 
> 2) Wanting the freedom to decide they don't want to work at the same
> place their whole career, and maybe live in some other state besides
> Texas or Georgia or wherever.
> 
> 3) Maybe wanting to not get underpaid because the employer knows you
> don't have much of an option to go anywhere else because this, at 10
> years later, is the only Ada island, or maybe one of the 3 remaining
> Ada islands (and the other 2 are in places where it goes down to 38
> below zero in the winter) in the country.
> 
> 4) Maybe just plain getting tired of Ada programming but not being
> able to leave with the narrow skillset.
> 
> Dave Head
> 

Yes, sadly there are too many employers who look mainly at prgromming
language skills. In my experience, knowledge of a speecific
programming language or specific tool is probably the least important
skill in a project of any size.

-- 
Ole-Hj. Kristensen

******************************************************************************
* You cannot consistently believe this sentence.
******************************************************************************

Re: employment with ada

[Preben Randhol]

DPH wrote:
> Any given Ada-speaking-only SW Engineer could and should be concerned
> about:
> 
> 1) Getting laid off in spite of the hot project - "stuff" can happen.
> 
> 2) Wanting the freedom to decide they don't want to work at the same
> place their whole career, and maybe live in some other state besides
> Texas or Georgia or wherever.
> 
> 3) Maybe wanting to not get underpaid because the employer knows you
> don't have much of an option to go anywhere else because this, at 10
> years later, is the only Ada island, or maybe one of the 3 remaining
> Ada islands (and the other 2 are in places where it goes down to 38
> below zero in the winter) in the country.
> 
> 4) Maybe just plain getting tired of Ada programming but not being
> able to leave with the narrow skillset.

Well, this is valid for any profession and set of skills. You need to
keep up with the "progress".

-- 
Preben Randhol                    http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Ed Falis <falis@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:20030505162702.44c61d2f.falis@adelphia.net...
> On Mon, 05 May 2003 16:19:40 -0400
> DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> > That "winding down" part is the problem.  One of the biggest Ada
> > boosters shouldn't be in a "Winding Down" mode for the langauge.
>
> It would be extremely naive to think that Ada was ever anything more
> than a means to an end for Rational.

Companies don't exist to promote a computer language or any other specific
technology. They exist to make money. If there was some sort of huge demand
out there for Ada, Rational would be out supporting it with a vengance. The
fact is that Ada is *not* a huge market force and Rational has simply
adapted to what the buying public is demanding. None of that makes Rational
"bad" - they're just like any other company that is trying to produce what
the market wants and make a buck doing it. If we generate more demand for
Ada, Rational (and others) will come around and start providing more support
for it. We can't expect them to do it as "charity work".

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> wrote in message
news:x7vof2hjoq4.fsf@smaug.pushface.org...
>
> Does realtime, embedded work involve GUIs? databases?
>
Not often, but if there were a few million Ada developers out there making
PC apps with Ada, nobody would object that they can't find Ada developers.
If there were a few million Ada/PC developers with good quality compilers
and support tools on the PC backing them up, people might be tempted to
start doing realtime/embedded work in Ada where they had a PC SBC as their
target. If Ada compiler vendors were making money hand over fist selling
PC-based compilers, they might be tempted to retarget them to other boards
for embedded use.

Success breeds success. At this point, I don't think it would be easy or
likely to get Ada adopted in most embedded efforts because of market
resistance and lack of adequate environments to do the job. Its a lot easier
to get it adopted in areas with less resistance and less demand for specific
tools. You don't need nearly as much to get a PC based app up and running so
Ada doesn't have to provide as much to be competitive in that market. If you
got acceptance in one market, its easier to then bleed over into other
markets. Start with what is achievable and work from there.


> How much safety-critical embedded avionics software gets written in C?
>
>
Lots.

We don't help ourselves if we delude ourselves into thinking that Ada is
some giant success out there in some invisible market that if only we could
lift the veil we'd see a multi-billion dollar business. Anything can be a
"success" if we define "success" narrowly enough. (Q: How many engine
controls for STOVL aircraft, designed in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida are
programmed in Ada? A: All of them. Does this make a difference to most Ada
developers looking for work?) Even if Ada had *all* the safety-critical
embedded avionics software development in the US, this wouldn't be a really
big market compared to the overall software market. Since that market is
small, the people making decisions about where to go with tools, etc., get
driven by costs and other factors to go use what the rest of the world is
using. Arguing that Ada is "better" for this kind of work is interesting,
but not compelling. Quality of the language is only one factor that has to
be considered. Making Ada more of a market force that didn't leave us poor
slobs building engine controls in P.B.G., FL feeling like we were off in a
desert somewhere might make the decision to use Ada an easier one.

I'm a big fan of Ada, but I think it needs to get off bottom-dead-center in
*some* market and start dominating it if it is going to have good long-term
prospects. "Realtime/Embedded" as a market looks like a tough nut to crack
and the Ada vendors don't have the budget to attempt to address it on
speculation. Some subset of the PC app market would be an easier target and
I think that developing libraries, GUIs, databases, etc., to suit some niche
in there would be a lot more doable.

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[L. Siever]

"Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" <aek@vib.usr.pu.ru> wrote in message 
> Well, I think those "Ada zealots" shouldn't worry, and perhaps some Ada tools
> vendors may be satisfied enough with this decision... especially SofCheck,
> because it has Ada-to-C compiler, and probably will be able to adapt it for
> 172 additional restrictions on output. So, all production code will be in C,
> while use of Ada will be merely some kind of automation, which increases
> productivity of coders and reviewers.

Hmm, I'm not realy up to date...
How many % of the DoD-code is still created by humans today?

There are tools out there that want to create the code for 
you(MatrixX, SCADE, etc).

Are these tools any good?

Re: employment with ada

[Wesley Groleau]

> Yes, sadly there are too many employers who look mainly at prgromming
> language skills. In my experience, knowledge of a speecific
> programming language or specific tool is probably the least important
> skill in a project of any size.

But, unfortunately, it is usually the most important
factor in getting the job.

Someone who can claim one year experience in C#
(and nothing else) is more likely to be hired
for a C# job than someone who can claim a year
or more in each of ten other languages.

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3EB5BC52.99E7C75E@adaworks.com...
>
> Au contraire.  In this case, the focus is to build the best quality
aircraft
> possible.   Knowing the engineers at LMCO as I do, I have not doubt
> they will do everything possible to do just that, regardless of what
> programming language they are required to use.
>

Keep in mind also that LMCO has to be extremely cost-conscious on the JSF
program. The DoD is looking at a base sticker price on the ATF in excess of
$200m a pop (IIRC - it is at least a really big impressive number). When
they went for the JSF, one of the goals was to make sure that the price on
the showroom floor would be a lot more affordable. That is probably a
significant factor in the selection of components and tools for the
avionics.

Consider that they want to have a lot of flexibility in choosing processors
for various avionics boxes. If you determined in advance that you wanted to
use Ada, you might have a rather limited selection of processors. So you
want to use some processor that will save you cost in box X but there is no
Ada compiler and what are you going to do? Choose a more expensive part? Pay
someone to retarget their compiler? Program that box in some other language
that is now different from everything else you are doing? Any direction you
go has potential cost increases.

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
involved in buying or building all of the surrounding tools you need that
might be more readily available and cheaper if you selected C? Is it a big
enough number that it overcomes the time value of money factors? What are
the costs involved in supporting a multiple language environment if I find I
can't do the whole thing in Ada? There are a lot of factors that go into the
economic decisions about the tools selected for a job like this. The answers
aren't always obvious.

The thing to remember is that the JSF buyer is being very price sensitive so
the engineers have to try to optimize "Cheap" in the development of this
plane. I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of a doubt on this one since
they certainly had to back up their case with some variety of cost studies.

I believe Ada *can* be a cost saving technology, but it is not the *only*
cost saving technology. Sometimes C has far more development leverage to
bring to market and Ada doesn't seem to be focused on meeting that
challenge.

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Stephen Leake]

"Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> writes:

> Companies don't exist to promote a computer language or any other specific
> technology. They exist to make money. If there was some sort of huge demand
> out there for Ada, Rational would be out supporting it with a vengance. The
> fact is that Ada is *not* a huge market force and Rational has simply
> adapted to what the buying public is demanding. None of that makes Rational
> "bad" - they're just like any other company that is trying to produce what
> the market wants and make a buck doing it. If we generate more demand for
> Ada, Rational (and others) will come around and start providing more support
> for it. We can't expect them to do it as "charity work".

While this is all true, consider what happened with Java. Sun marketed
it agressively (for many reasons), and thus created the demand for it.
There was no demand for it initially. They could have picked an
existing language, and targeted it to a virtual machine.

As usual, the situation is complicated ...

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: employment with ada

[Stephen Leake]

Wesley Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> writes:

> > Yes, sadly there are too many employers who look mainly at prgromming
> > language skills. In my experience, knowledge of a speecific
> > programming language or specific tool is probably the least important
> > skill in a project of any size.
> 
> But, unfortunately, it is usually the most important
> factor in getting the job.
> 
> Someone who can claim one year experience in C#
> (and nothing else) is more likely to be hired
> for a C# job than someone who can claim a year
> or more in each of ten other languages.

The point is there should not be "C# jobs". There should be web jobs,
or real-time jobs, or business process jobs. The language is just a
tool, not a requirement!

Sigh.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: employment with ada

[Stephen Leake]

lsiever6619@yahoo.com (L. Siever) writes:

> "Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" <aek@vib.usr.pu.ru> wrote in message:

> Hmm, I'm not realy up to date...
> How many % of the DoD-code is still created by humans today?

100%

> There are tools out there that want to create the code for
> you(MatrixX, SCADE, etc).

They don't "create code"! They let people write code in different
languages, using a partially graphical syntax (UML tools work the same
way; UML is a language). Then they translate that code into an earlier
language that can be compiled for an actual machine.

This is a traditional path to developing a new language. I believe the
very first C++ "compiler" (Cfront?) translated C++ into C. The Gnu
compiler still translates high-level languages into assembly code; that
is not called "creating code".

> Are these tools any good?

Some of them are useful, for people who like the graphical languages,
because they are similar to the languages used in their domain
(control flow diagrams for control systems, for example).

However, the graphical languages are often poorly defined. Even UML
2.0 is not completely defined in terms of being able to generate code;
each vendor has to add some semantics and make some architecture
decisions. The best vendors give control over the missing parts to the
user, via extensions to UML.

I don't like them, because I have found that Ada is the best language
for my domain (embedded hard real-time control systems). In large
part, that is because the language is clearly defined.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: employment with ada

[Wesley Groleau]

> The point is there should not be "C# jobs". There should be web jobs,
> or real-time jobs, or business process jobs. The language is just a
> tool, not a requirement!

Not exactly.

You have described what should be, not what _is_

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote in message
news:uof2enb7p.fsf@nasa.gov...
>
> While this is all true, consider what happened with Java. Sun marketed
> it agressively (for many reasons), and thus created the demand for it.
> There was no demand for it initially. They could have picked an
> existing language, and targeted it to a virtual machine.
>
Oh, sure. Absolutely. Without a doubt. I've argued here in the past that if
Ada had a big, institutional sponsor that was willing to sink some money
into developing the language infrastructure and into a big marketing effort,
it would be doing a lot better. Back in the day when the DoD was that big
sponsor, there was a problem: The DoD isn't a business and a) doesn't know
how to market a product and b) doesn't see that as their job. The world was
different back in that time and mistakes were made - what are you going to
do?

Remember that Ada was originally targeted for embedded systems back in a
time when computers were substantially smaller & weaker. It was not uncommon
for DoD projects to go off and develop a custom language & compiler just for
the project. Projects built lots of their own support tools. Ada was
substantially bigger than most of these languages and exceeded the
capabilities of much of the development hardware that was out there.
Technologically, it was too far ahead of its time, but as hardware got more
powerful and people began to expect more, from a marketing perspective, it
was behind the times. It was too big a language for any one project to go
out and custom-build a compiler for and projects were already turning away
from that anyway in favor of buying off-the-shelf tools. So you didn't have
the customary means of "bootstrapping" the language into use.

If we were to undertake it today, I think there would be a number of things
that the DoD (or any institutional sponsor) would want to do: Fund the
development of a compiler and support environment on some popular platform.
Make sure the compiler could be readily retargeted to other architectures.
Make the compiler readily available for either cheap or free. Set aside a
budget to buy lots of adds in trade journals & elsewhere for at least 1..2
years - basically get marketing experts and fund the marketing. They came
*dangerously* close to doing this with Gnat, but pulled back too soon for it
to take effect.

They funded the initial development of Gnat, but pulled back before it was a
real "product". ACT took it over while it was still a Science Fair Project
and, to their credit, turned it into a viable product. But ACT didn't
exactly come at this with deep pockets, so there wasn't money in the budget
to develop an IDE, a GUI, libraries, etc. They could only move at a slow
pace developing what the rest of the world takes for granted with any
"serious" language compiler. Again, to their credit, they are getting there,
but not in a timely fashion. (Every day that Gnat/Ada doesn't have what you
get with Java, is another day that some project decides to go with Java,
right?) They also didn't come at this with a big marketing budget so
whatever their marketing department is doing is basically trying to make
bricks without straw. They can't buy magazine ads, radio spots, get
interviews on network TV or NPR, etc. (Sun succeeded in doing a lot of that
with Java.) Had the government set aside a pile of money to fund ACT for a
couple of years to do all of the above, Ada95 would have been a
substantially bigger success and they would have protected their past
investment in Ada by making it viable for the big DoD contracts that were or
could be using it.

But then again, this isn't the proper roll for "government". It belongs to
someone like IBM or Microsoft. And, of course, they have no vested interest
in Ada and would have wanted something "different" anyway so that they
didn't inherit all the bad reputation Ada acquired and they would be
percieved as doing something "new" and "innovative".

At this point, I don't see how Ada could acquire a big institutional backer.
It may be possible, but I don't know who that would be or what they would
see as a benefit to themselves in doing so. Unless Ada were to possibly
"piggyback" on some other technology, such as a new PC operating system or
database or some similar product.


> As usual, the situation is complicated ...
>
It always is. Sigh...

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[tmoran]

>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!

Re: employment with ada

[Marin David Condic]

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

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: employment with ada

[Hyman Rosen]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
> people seem *less* willing to make investments with longer payoffs!

The whole internet/telecommunications bubble was partly a result
of people making investments with longer payoffs, so long, in fact,
that they would never happen. The reaction to that has been a
contraction to projects with more immediate and forseeable returns.

Re: employment with ada

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <1052485899.462211@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:
> tmoran@acm.org wrote:
>> people seem *less* willing to make investments with longer payoffs!
> 
> The whole internet/telecommunications bubble was partly a result
> of people making investments with longer payoffs, so long, in fact,
> that they would never happen. The reaction to that has been a
> contraction to projects with more immediate and forseeable returns.

At least in the case of fiber optic networks, the problem was that there
were many people making the _same_ investments, counting on getting the
whole of whatever future market would evolve.  Even in the face of the
outlandish pretensions we see, people just don't have that much valuable
data.

Re: employment with ada

[Chad R. Meiners]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:6Mcta.37135$D%4.20715@nwrdny03.gnilink.net...
> Richard Riehle wrote:
>  > Instead, they cobble together a set of restrictions for C
>
> How is this different from SPARK?

SPARK is an excellent (my opinion, I am not affiliated with Praxis) language
that allows you to practice a correctness by construction methodology which
is backed up by powerful proof techniques.  In SPARK's case the restrictions
are helpful since they make the proofs more tractable.  If you read through
the SPARK rational it will explain why almost every restriction is in place.

So when asking how this differs from a restricted subset of C, I would
speculate that the restricted C is MISRA-C.  Praxis appears to have some
information on the differences between SPARK and MISRA-C at

http://www.sparkada.com/assent.html

Re: employment with ada

[Hyman Rosen]

Chad R. Meiners wrote:
> So when asking how this differs from a restricted subset of C, I would
> speculate that the restricted C is MISRA-C.  Praxis appears to have some
> information on the differences between SPARK and MISRA-C at
> http://www.sparkada.com/assent.html

I wouldn't call it "information" if it's the PDF slide show that we're
talking about. If MISRA-C were a person, then it would be an ad hominem
attack - there's a lot of name calling, but no information about actual
problems. It's just the usual C-hating screed.

On the other hand, the sample set of rules for MISRA-C seem pretty silly
to me - they mostly boil down to "program in C correctly" and many of them
are checked by ordinary compilers.

Re: employment with ada

[Chad R. Meiners]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:ivjva.13622$rV2.3029@nwrdny01.gnilink.net...
> I wouldn't call it "information" if it's the PDF slide show that we're
> talking about. If MISRA-C were a person, then it would be an ad hominem
> attack - there's a lot of name calling, but no information about actual
> problems. It's just the usual C-hating screed.

I was thinking the links, but C/C++ are unsuitable for practical formal
analysis.  Formal analysis was the context of the pdf slides so the attack
on C is not an ad hominem type attack.  This would not be the case if a
similar claim was made for not using C to write a text adventure game.  To
be fair to the slides they did give some reasons (ambiguity, and
non-standardizable tools).

Re: employment with ada

[Robert A Duff]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> I wouldn't call it "information" if it's the PDF slide show that we're
> talking about. If MISRA-C were a person, then it would be an ad hominem
> attack - there's a lot of name calling, but no information about actual
> problems. It's just the usual C-hating screed.

There is one such "ad hominem" type statement -- it quotes somebody
saying, "MISRA C is a shack built on a swamp!".  Anonymously.

But the stuff after that seems pretty well reasoned and backed up by
evidence.  For example, they point out that the rules of MISRA C are
ambiguous, all the tools interpret them differently, and it's not
feasible to check the rules by hand.  Why is that a "C-hating screed"?

- Bob

Re: employment with ada

[Hyman Rosen]

Chad R. Meiners wrote:
> I was thinking the links, but C/C++ are unsuitable for practical formal
> analysis.

And so is Ada, since SPARK gets there by doing things like eliminating
pointers.

Re: employment with ada

[Hyman Rosen]

Robert A Duff wrote:

> There is one such "ad hominem" type statement -- it quotes somebody
> saying, "MISRA C is a shack built on a swamp!".  Anonymously.
> 
> But the stuff after that seems pretty well reasoned and backed up by
> evidence.  For example, they point out that the rules of MISRA C are
> ambiguous, all the tools interpret them differently, and it's not
> feasible to check the rules by hand.  Why is that a "C-hating screed"?

They complain about MISRA-C being ambiguous because C itself is ambiguous.
I don't know exactly what that is supposed to mean - probably things like
integer sizes being implementation dependent and such, but they don't say.
Then they talk about how you should be afraid of being sued if you use C
for your implementation.

Trust me. To anyone who is not already emotionally invested in Ada, this
sounds exactly like the whiny sort of C bashing that makes anyone who hears
it immdiately distrust the source. The basic problem is that these screeds
seem to claim that it's impossible to produce good software in C, which runs
directly counter to the experience of most programmers. Threatening C
programmers with lawsuits just enforces the belief that the other languages
can't hold up on their merits, but require FUD and force for them to be used.

Re: employment with ada

[Rod Chapman]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message 
> I wouldn't call it "information" if it's the PDF slide show that we're
> talking about. If MISRA-C were a person, then it would be an ad hominem
> attack - there's a lot of name calling, but no information about actual
> problems. It's just the usual C-hating screed.

I wrote and presented the slides in question, and I'm very happy to
answer any questions about their content, either personally
or in comp.lang.ada.
 - Rod Chapman, Praxis

Re: employment with ada

[Hyman Rosen]

Rod Chapman wrote:
> I wrote and presented the slides in question, and I'm very happy to
> answer any questions about their content, either personally
> or in comp.lang.ada.

Well, my primary question is how you expect to convince anyone except
for the already converted when you start talking about "a shack built
on a swamp". You have to expect that almost everyone in the embedded
community has programmed in C at some point, and has produced working
implementations. But you are telling them that by definition, they have
spent their careers producing crap, and you are about to lead them out
of the darkness. I trust you are not surprised at the results.

The PDFs talk about C ambiguity. What exactly is this supposed to mean,
and why is it a problem?

On the other hand, the sample rules for MISRA-C seem to just be rules of
correct C as opposed to limitations on the language. I assume that there
are actually some rules which do impose constraints. The ASSENT product
pages claim that they have a complete checking environment for all the
rules which can be examined by source, but you seem to doubt that this
can be true without explaining why.

Are there multiple implementations of the SPARK Examiner from different
companies? If not, criticism of multiple MISRA-C examiners for producing
somewhat different results is at least a little disingenuous.

Re: employment with ada

[Chad R. Meiners]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:L4vva.15580$rV2.881@nwrdny01.gnilink.net...
> Chad R. Meiners wrote:
> > I was thinking the links, but C/C++ are unsuitable for practical formal
> > analysis.
>
> And so is Ada, since SPARK gets there by doing things like eliminating
> pointers.

Yes Ada has some ambiguous features that make formal analysis difficult, but
fortunately Ada can be subseted into well defined languages like SPARK. ;)

Re: employment with ada

[Rod Chapman]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:<E0yva.16125$rV2.12620@nwrdny01.gnilink.net>...

> Well, my primary question is how you expect to convince anyone except
> for the already converted when you start talking about "a shack built
> on a swamp".

That quote actually comes from a prominent member of the C community,
not from me, and was used with his permission.  It is indeed a slightly
tongue-in-cheek assessment of the language, and I presented it
as such.  Perhpas this doesn't come across clearly enough in
the slides alone.

> The PDFs talk about C ambiguity. What exactly is this supposed to mean,
> and why is it a problem?

C (like Ada) has plenty of ambiguity in its defintion - to use the
Ada terminology, these are the implementation-defined, implementation-
dependent and erroneous bit of the langauge.  ISO C90 lists about
205 of these I think.

> On the other hand, the sample rules for MISRA-C seem to just be rules of
> correct C as opposed to limitations on the language. I assume that there
> are actually some rules which do impose constraints.

Absolutely - some of the rules limit the use of casts and pointer
arithmetic, for example, which are very important constraints.

> The ASSENT product
> pages claim that they have a complete checking environment for all the
> rules which can be examined by source, but you seem to doubt that this
> can be true without explaining why.

Owing to the ambiguity of the definition (both of C and of the 
MISRA rules), the notion of "compliance" is very hard to pin down.
Some of the rules are also require very deep analysis (MISRA
rule 30, for example, effectively requires global inter-procedural
data-flow analysis which is very hard in the presence of
general pointer effects and aliasing.)  In the study conducted
by Pi Technology, some tools were found to attempt a deep analysis (but
are slow) and some tools do a less deep analysis but are faster.
Which tool is correct?  Which would you buy? :-)

> Are there multiple implementations of the SPARK Examiner from different
> companies? If not, criticism of multiple MISRA-C examiners for producing
> somewhat different results is at least a little disingenuous.

SPARK is deliberately and carefully designed so the
question "Is this program legal SPARK?" always has a 
"Yes/No" answer that is decideable in polynomial time.
(The latter point is important - trying to solve NP-Hard
problems in static analysis is bad news if you want to 
encourage constructive use of the technology...)

So...No - no other company has chosen to compete with us in tool support
for SPARK as present.  BUT...since SPARK _does_ have an unambiguous
defintion, it should be possible for such as diverse
implementation to be constructed and for it to give identical
results to the existing SPARK Examiner.

(Actually - now I think of it - there is such a tool, but it
isn't publically available.  Still - its existance illustrates
the point.)

 - Rod