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From: gwinn@res.ray.com (Joe Gwinn)
Subject: Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered?
Date: 1996/07/22
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Date: 1996-07-22T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <31E4F95A.7D48@east.thomsoft.com>, Jim Chelini
<jchelini@east.thomsoft.com> wrote:

> In at least one of the cases of FAA RFPs (WAAS)that you are referring 
> to, the choice of langague was mandated to be C.  However, in this case 
> the FAA had already invested in a prototype system that was wriiten in C 
> on PCs and they wanted to reuse some of this investment.  The 
> contractors now doing the job still have to figure out how they are 
> going to certify this system to the FAA's standards (namily DO-178B).  
> While doable (maybe) with a C implementation (plus OS), it would be 
> easier in a controlled subset of Ada.

Hi Jim,

Not exactly.  There was a big discussion about reusing the research
prototype code, and the FAA subsequently made it clear that they did *not*
want us to reuse that code.  The issue was safety.  The prototype code was
research-grade, and was neither intended nor designed for full-scale
worldwide operational use in a safety-critical system carrying millions of
civilians.  The plan was to use the existing code as a particularly
detailed form of documentation, and to develop the operational code from
scratch using the full-blown formal safety-critical software design and
development process, with redundant and mutually-suspicious components. 
The whole nine yards.

Has anybody an example of a recent FAA RFP/SOW either asking for or
permitting Ada?  I think that's the key question.

Joe.