I know the STC is dropping Ada tracks, but I was unpleasantly
surprised to receive a call from a track coordinator yesterday telling
me that a proposed repeat of my Tri-Ada'97 panel titled "Software
Engineering Plan Reviews -- Better or Worse for Ada than the Mandate?"
was requested to shorten the title to just "Software Engineering Plan
Reviews."

My first reaction was that this change would almost totally obscure
that the panel is intended to be a debate about possible affects on
Ada and language quality (& s/w quality) in the DoD, rather than
simply what are SEPRs all about.  The latter is part of the panel,
but really just the stage-setting part.

Then I asked if all submissions with "Ada" in the title were getting
similar requests.  The track coordinator thought so.

To me, if true, that is crazy.  Feeling that Ada is no longer
important enough or leading-edge enough to get a track is one thing,
but to overtly eradicate Ada from the program is not only an
over-reaction, but bad technical judgment, IMHO!  And, it sends the
signal (intended or not) that the DoD really is going to discriminate
against Ada usage.

Can someone closer to STC sources than me shed some light on this?  Is
the situation really as bad as I perceive, or are other Ada-related
subjects being allowed to retain their Ada identity?

        -- Hal