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From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: A scapegoat once again :(
Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 08:44:48 -0700
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Date: 2011-05-20T08:44:48-07:00
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On 5/20/2011 8:13 AM, Britt Snodgrass wrote:
> Seen on DailyTech today:
>
> http://www.dailytech.com/F22+Upgrades+Over+Budget+and+Behind+Schedule+F35+May+Cost+1T+in+Operating+Costs/article21692.htm
>
> "The cause of the delay in delivery stems from the programming
> language used called Ada. The Ada language was once a DoD standard,
> but the use of the language has waned in the last 15 years. Analyst
> Loren Thompson from the Lexington Institute said, "It tends to impede
> quick upgrades to the system to which it is the base software."
>
> It�s really sad and disturbing to read such an incorrect and
> uninformed statement. How could Ada "impede quick upgrades" unless
> they really mean that the coders they've been hiring recently are
> intimidated by compiler warnings.
>
> - Britt


Compared to updating one's Javascript and Matlab scripts and such,
yes, I completely agree with the author, Ada takes more effort to
upgrade, since must recompile things! Very annoying thing to have
to do just to upgrade software.

I think all flight control systems, nuclear plants software and
such should be rewritten from scratch in HTML, CCS, python,
Javascript, flash, and other new cool, modern tools.

This way one can upgrade the software by editing the page on the fly,
and see the effect show up instantly !  Easy upgrade path, edit and try,
edit and try, edit and try, this is how things are supposed to be.

The above is the modern way of developing software. No more painful
compiling and such. Scripting is the way to go.

The author is right on. Compiling and fixing compiler error and then
linking is so like 1980's and not cool anymore.

--Nasser