The DII COE is the Defense departments "Common Operating Environment".  Each
of the 3 services (Army, Navy/Marines, Air Force) was doing software
acquisition in a vacuum, making it hard for the 3 services to have their
computers talk to each other and participate in joint operations.  To remedy
this, the COE is supposed to severely limit the platforms you can use for
development.  It specifies things like, what operating system can I use,
what programming languages can I use, and in theory provides a large library
of reusable code, common installations, etc.  It has a friend called the
"Joint Technical Architecture", which specifies web browsers, web
development software, office applications, etc.

In my opinion (note strongly I am exercising my academic freedom here, and
not speaking on behalf of the Air Force Academy, US Air Force, or DoD), this
will be almost as successful as the Ada mandate.  The COE has Windows and
Unix and all sorts of things that could never really get along anyway.

Nonetheless, I do think it is important to remedy this blatant error in
their document, which will undoubtedly be used by non-technical bureaucrats
to make all sorts of decisions that should be technically done.

--Martin


-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Moran [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 3:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: DII COE bars Ada -> Java compilation


  For those of us in the civilian sector, who or what is "DII COE"
and what is the significance of this?
  As pointed out, using the Java language, as opposed to any other,
does not prevent intentional security attacks.  One could argue
that using the Java language, as opposed to Ada, makes unintentional
problems *more* likely.
  I would think the author has shown himself, very publicly,
incompetent at his current job, and should be transferred elsewhere.
  (Assume 50 years ago someone directed "Submarines shall not use
nuclear reactors because they need lead shielding, which is heavy
and will prevent rapid surfacing in case of emergency."
Would GE & Westinghouse & Adm Rickover have accepted such a
ruling, merely grumbling to themselves?)