Another relevant piece of bad news from a JSF Combat Software article in
AviationNow today
(http://www.aviationnow.com/awin/awin_awst/awin_awst_story.jsp?issueDate=2003-08-18&story=xml/awst_xml/2003/08/18/AW_08_18_2003_p52-56-01.xml):

"Huff said the software development effort will peak in 2005 with about
1,500 software developers, half employed in Fort Worth and half working at
partner and supplier sites. About three-fourths of these workers have
already been hired, and the F-35 program has encountered no difficulty
recruiting software engineers, a "pleasant surprise," according to Huff,
considering the number who left aerospace during the dot.com craze. Some
Lockheed Martin workers transferred over from the F-16 and T-50 programs,
and software engineers who had left the company to work in the telecom
sector returned.

One strategy chosen to accommodate rapid hiring of software engineers for
the F-35 program was to write all the code in C and C++, popular general
purpose languages used extensively in the commercial world. This made a
larger pool of candidates available for recruiting."