From a simple business marketing point of view, Jim Smith is correct. Unfortunately, if US DoD continues to use this type of reasoning, it will purchase the cheapest parts made in China or better yet in the third world for equipment including the weapons systems. Unfortunately this article has not significant mention of software engineering. Unfortunately, the SEI in this case has behaved as do many Government contractors and produced propaganda instead of an engineering study. A study would have compared Ada versus other languages in terms: of the cost of development and maintenance, the defect levels in the products, and the reliability of the products. I like your suggestion about trained attack-lawyers. I believe we should give a free seminar for these lawyers and provide expert witnesses. A few billion dollars in malpractice judgments will greatly increase the popularity of Ada. I might note that there have been two major problems with promoting the use of Ada. 1) The Ada community includes few if any entrepreneurs that are interested in commercial products. 2) The US DoD goofed when it did not tell NSF to do its job and promote software engineering including Ada and then did not tell Congress of the dire consequences that would result if NSF did not do its mandated job. Bob Leif Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. Email [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan and Carmel Brain Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 5:40 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: FW: What about Ada? From: "Carlisle Martin C Dr USAFA/DFCS" <[log in to unmask]> > FYI. I've already corrected his misstatements about the Air Force Academy > and West Point (we still use Ada), and he indicated he would publish a > correction. > From: White Al Maj USAFA/DFCS > > One recent article about the "state" of Ada use: > > http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/03.reports/03tn021.html > <http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/03.reports/03tn021.html> At the risk of "preaching to the converted".... I think he's right with his conclusions. The future belongs to Visual Basic, Microsoft, Java, Worms, Virusses, Patches, buffer-overflows and the consequent weekly and monthly Software Chernobyls. That way lies guaranteed employment for software engineers doing maintenance - increasingly in India these days. Unless and until packs of trained attack-lawyers go after the software industry for its criminal negligence in not using appropriate languages and techniques for both safety-critical and non-safety-critical work, we're stuck with a worsening situation. I used to think that the hard empirical evidence of a language's superiority in productivity would help. But while that's neccessary, it's not sufficient. It's not about being the cheapest and best, it's about being the most popular. The only way out might (I repeat might) be via Executable/Translateable Models, but the current action languages are neither standardised nor particularly readable. But until then, we're reaching the point where the language "critical mass" needed to support efficient Safety-Critical software development will no longer exist. Suggestions on how to get us out of this hole welcome.