There should be a mandate, but it needs to be different than the current
mandate.

Here is what I propose:

1.  You must use common software engineering principles.
* Rules to be determined
2.  You must provide an Ada95 (or whatever language the DoD standardizes
on for Glue Code) interface to your API's
3.  You must use as much as possible from the existing library of
maintained application components
  By maintained I mean they are developed already and maintained by an
organization other than the one writing the new application.
The API's to library components will be provided in the "Glue Code"
language.

This above mentioned mandate is not only "do-able" from a vendor
perspective, but it is very useful from a DoD perspective.  It allows
that those who need to use a special language to do some special
functions can do that.  It also provides that whatever is done will be
useful to integrators in the DoD or working for the DoD.

Chad

 ----------
From:  owner-team-ada[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:  Tuesday, March 11, 1997 12:41 PM
To:  TEAM-ADA
Subject:  Re: The DoD Ada Mandate

I want to stress that the following is my own personal opinion and *does
not* represent the position of the company I work for.


Chad Bremmon wrote:
>
> Mr. Paige is right to say that a mandate is bad for DoD while Ada is
not.
>
> Why mandate it?  Why not just make it the easiest, least expensive,
most
> cost effective, quickest and best supported solution?

I understand completely the problems with mandating things.  But I have
to say that in the neck of the woods where I work, there is an
adolescent type of libertarianism at work which effectively says, "since
the mandate is going away (or has not been enforced - take your pick),
we *should not* use Ada".

It is a sad commentary on life that "mandate" is automatically
equivalenced to "Big Brother".

I will grant you that the mandate is probably not working.

*BUT* removing the mandate will not make things better, in my humble
opinion, because there is no "Language-nuetral", good common sense
consensus out there chafing under the constraints of the mandate and
yearning to break free.

What there is instead is an equal and opposite mandate known as
anti-mandatism that will flock to C/C++ because these languages are more
"fun".

I would *love* to be proved wrong on this, but my feeling on the Ada
mandate is that the only thing worse than the Ada mandate is getting rid
of it.

Now I will put that opinion on the shelf since it is no longer of any
utility.  Thanks for letting me vent.
 --
James Squire           mailto:m193884 no junk mail
[log in to unmask]
MDA Avionics Tools & Processes
McDonnell Douglas Aerospace              http://www.mdc.com/
Opinions expressed here are my own and NOT my company's
"Where you walk, I will walk. I have sworn myself to your side."
'You do not know, you can not know what you're saying.'
"Yes, I do. Come what may Delenn, I will not leave your side while I
    am still alive."
        -- Lennier and Delenn, "All Alone in the Night"