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"Brashear, Phil" <[log in to unmask]>
Wed, 16 Dec 1998 10:51:25 -0500
text/plain (91 lines)
This isn't an attempt to criticize -- your ideas are fine -- but there's a
bit of misinformation:
Ada (the date is 1995, not 1987) is no longer the only ISO standardized
language.

ISO/IEC 14882:1998  Programming Languages -- C++

was issued September 1, 1998.

(We can still say Ada was the first, but no longer the only!)

Phil

Phil Brashear
EDS Conformance Testing Center
4646 Needmore Road, Bin 46
P.O. Box 24593
Dayton, OH  45424-0593
(937) 237-4510
[log in to unmask]
www.eds-conform.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Coniam, Todd (MSgt) [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 1998 10:19 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Programming Culture (was: Choose Ada flyer)
>
> Speaking of PC Week, I just received the December 14, 1998 copy and lo and
> behold Peter Coffee's cover article is about poor software quality.  In
> the
> main article (pg. 18) even Microsoft's president Steve Ballmer admits they
> have a quality problem.  As is typical of the quick fix culture, they are
> going to "improve its [Microsoft's] quality assurance processes."  I read
> it
> as adding more testers and tools (Bounds checkers are mentioned in the
> article).  Several other similar statements are made from other anonymous
> software companies.
>
> Two other follow-on articles (pg. 20) say generally the same thing but
> also
> lean towards the post-production testing for quality.  When are they going
> to learn, you can't test in quality, you have to design and build it in.
> At
> least they have recognized that they have a problem...
>
> This is a GREAT opportunity to promote Ada!  The industry is finally
> awakening to the software quality issue and not just focusing on features
> and time-to-market.  I'm sure the Y2K issue is helping in this regard.
>
> As Richard Riehle continually suggests, the Ada industry should jump on
> this
> with a full scale promotion of Ada's strengths in developing quality
> software.  Not bug free, or safety critical, just quality and stability.
> We
> may want to also push speed of development and reusability as side notes.
>
> Example advertisement of Ada readability:
>
>    It's no wonder your programmers have a
>    hard time finding bugs with code like this:
>
>       [C++ example with obscure bug]
>       (Hungarian notation and pre-processor
>        directives would be useful to obscure
>        the bug here)
>
>    With Ada the bugs almost jump out of
>    the code by themselves.
>
>       [Clean Ada example with easily
>        recognized bug highlighted]
>
>    Ada - Quality is built in.
>
>
>    Ada, the _only_ internationally
>    standardized Object-Oriented language.
>    ANSI/ISO/IEC 8652:1987
>
>
> Well everyone, what are we going to do?  Are we going to sit around
> waiting
> to see what happens or are we going to make something happen?
>
>
> Todd Coniam
> -- Statements made are my opinion and are
> -- not necessarily those of the U.S. Air Force.

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