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Subject:
From:
Paul Pukite <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Paul Pukite <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 10 Jul 2004 14:22:47 -0400
Content-Type:
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Toshitaka Kumano wrote

>However, such a report in U.S. like
>http://www.sei.cmu.edu/pub/documents/03.reports/pdf/03tn021.pdf
>is enough to persuade managers in Japan that "Ada is Dead or Dying".
>

Toshitaka,

Forward this email I am sending to your managers. I am a person
referenced in that article, based on a web page I have been maintaining
over the past 10 years.

If I must tell you one thing: I believe the author Jim Smith lies and
distorts the facts. He puts this quote in his paper "In a related
observation, Paul Pukite notes a dramatic decrease in the number of Ada
articles published by various trade magazines (vice academic journals)
from a peak of 27 in 1995 to 1 in 2002 [Pukite 02]."

I said no such thing. I did not speak to the Jim Smith fellow and I have
not written this anywhere on the web or in any publication. And
bottom-line, I do not believe the statement is even true. You can take a
look at my "Ada in the Trade Press" page (at http://umn.edu/~puk) and
see that the number of papers written is somewhat constant over the
years. But then again even given that statement, I don't pretend to
capture all the papers written that contain Ada references. I used to
look at more trade journals in the past, but with the advent of web
publishing, printed matter is becoming less and less relevant. To top it
off, the main thing to remember is that Ada is becoming a commodity
product. Commodity products are things like zippers; you just use them
and rarely have to worry, thus fewer references (e.g. How often do you
see referenced "Zipper World Today"?).

Also, consider this: I have received e-mail from Jim Smith in the past.
To whit, this is what I dug off may archives --

================
Paul,

I recently received an e-mail from an individual at Praxis Critical
Systems with a list of some of their article which have been published
recently...

James D. Smith II ([log in to unmask]) <http://www.sei.cmu.edu/staff/jds/>
< [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Software Engineering Institute

================

So basically, Smith has an agenda and achieves it via dissembling data.
He sent me a friendly email for a new paper to place on my trade-press
page, and then turns around and commits the scientific equivalent of
slander. I have come to expect a kind of sloppiness in reporting from
the technical and mass media, who are often on a strict deadline. But,
to have a "scientific" paper, ostensibly from a reputable organization
such as CMU-SEI, prevaricate like this is particularly loathsome.

I am seriously considering sending a letter to the government funding
agency responsible for sponsoring that CMU-SEI paper outlining my
concerns of serious academic misconduct.

Paul Pukite, PhD, Electrical Engineering
UMN alumni account

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