Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada?

["Alexander E. Kopilovich" <aek@VB1162.spb.edu>]

Michael Card wrote:

> Are you postulating here that the US DoD is deliberately choosing 
> programming languages that promote obfuscation for the purpose of 
> thwarting Chinese intelligence operations?

First, I would not use the word "obfuscation" here, it is much too strong
for the case. What is going is moving the bulk of that software development
to the technologies, which are 1) more affordable for US than for China and
2) conveying less information through source code leakage.

Second, I'm postulating nothing here. I'm just projecting relatively recent
history onto current situation (well, it wasn't China in the past, as you can
guess), and I see some similarities.

Third, thwarting competitor/opponent's intelligence operation is certainly
a significant, but still secondary aim. The primary aim is to maintain
advantageous position for own development forces against the development
forces of (less developed) competitor/opponent.