RE: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bitaddressing and OOP

["Beard, Frank Randolph CIV" <frank.beard@navy.mil>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Welsh [mailto:news@tom-welsh.co.uk]

> How about successful projects? Well, for a start these are in a small
> minority - partly because of the syndrome described above. Moreover,
> some of the most strikingly successful projects are considered strategic
> (whether in government or business) and are therefore kept secret. Once
> again, the feedback loops are blocked and learning does not take place
> on any significant scale.

I worked on the Space Shuttle ground based test chambers.  The development
was totally in Ada.  The final product was about 200K lines of code.  NASA
was very satisfied with the software.  We were even given an award by NASA.
However, our NASA management told us not to tell anyway about the software,
because, as a government agency, we would have to give a copy of the source
code to anyone who asked.  Among other things, they were afraid we would
have to provide support to the outside world, even if it were only occasional
telephone, or email, support.

I never say anything anywhere that talked about it's success.

Frank