Tucker Taft wrote:
>
> When looking at a cost/benefit analysis, it is always easiest to
> see the benefits of a favored solution, and the costs of a disfavored
> solution.

I haven't seen the report yet, only various summaries, but your reference
to "cost/benefit analysis" has me wondering about the methodology used in
the study. As I understand it, the Ada policy (and Ada itself) was intended
to foster lower total life-cycle costs, even at the expense of higher initial
development costs. However, your description of why Ada may not be appropriate
for some domains seems to emphasize time-to-market and development cost
factors only. How extensively does the report discuss life-cycle cost
comparisons? Does it make assumptions about where the long-term maintenance
of software will be performed (depot vs. contractor vs. COTS vendor), for
example?

By the way, I was stunned to see that the November 4 issue of Aviation Week
and Space Technology already has an article on the Ada study. The punchline of
the article: "The report said that the Defense Dept. should either provide
that support [$15M/yr] or drop the Ada requirement entirely."  Given the
current budget situation, I'd say that decision has already been made...

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