At 07:28 AM 1/25/01 +0100, Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote:

>The "Charles de Gaulle" is France brand new nuclear aircraft carrier,
>launched a couple of months ago.
>I read recently in a paper that "it was remarkable and unusual that NO
>software problem was discovered during field testing".
>
>Of course you guessed it: a big part of the software is in Ada (with some
>C++ TBH). Coincidence, coincidence...
>
>(BTW: there was a big noise in the press about the breaking of one
>propeller. Apart from the above article, nobody talked about the
>big software success. Something that works is not an information... Maybe
>that's why we don't see Ada more often in the press :-)

This is precisely correct.  For years when one of my academic colleagues
would say "Nobody is using Ada" I would ask "Why do you say
that?"  Invariably the answer was "You never hear about it."  I would
immediately reply something like "That's because software written in Ada
WORKS, and we only pay attention to things that DON'T work.  That's why
Microsoft and almost anything written in C becomes so well-known - that
software all SUCKS!"  Naturally, the colleague was usually a C-freak.  The
response was usually a very blank stare and shake of the head.  People (no
matter how intelligent they are) who believe it is reasonable to develop
software in C are generally not able to understand even the simple logic of
this phenomenon.  :))

sro

S. Ron Oliver, semi-retired professor of Computer Science and Computer
Engineering.  www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sroliver

Tired of sucky software! ?  Check out www.caressCorp.com and follow the
links to software sucks and The Oliver Academy.