MIKE:  Nice job!  I looked at the legacy article and your sidebar
interview, and see the legacy article as another instance of "any
publicity is good publicity" for Ada.  Certainly not a real positive
push for Ada (and I'm really glad you got that friendly sidebar
opportunity and used it so nicely), but better than for some other "old"
languages (mentioned and unmentioned).  To have the same article without
mentioning Ada would send worse signals about Ada's viability.

But I have to ask you about the semantic distinction you seem to make
between the word "mandate" and the literal DoD policy requirement in the
sidebar interview.  My dictionary says that a mandate is "an
authoritative command" and a requirement is "something insisted upon or
demanded."  The only essential difference I see is that mandate comes
from someone high or powerful enough to be designated an "authority"
--  and this was certainly the case for the DoD's Ada stance.  The Under
or Assistant Secretary of Defense is certainly more of an authority than
my contracting officer, my technical monitor, my company management, the
Chair of SIGAda, or my gung-ho colleagues.  The scope of any authority's
jurisdiction is defined with some boundaries, and the authority
commanding Ada had larger jurisdiction (the DoD) than do most
authorities.  So, what am I missing?     --hh

PS:  Mention SIGAda's own url next time, although maybe it is obvious
from EducWG's.  (Maybe you did and it got edited out?  :-)


Michael Feldman wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The "classical" Datamation magazine has recently metamorphosed into
> an online free-subscription thing. Recently I was contacted by
> Karen Watterson, one of their regular columnists, for answers to
> a few of her questions about Ada as a "legacy language." Seems she
> was writing an article on legacy systems.
>
> Well, needless to say, I set her straight about how I didn't think Ada
>
> had yet been consigned to "legacy" status, and next thing I knew,
> she had written my comments up in a sidebar interview. So surf
> over to
>
> http://www.datamation.com/PlugIn/newissue/DATAM.html
>
> and have a look at her article and my sidebar. Write to her if you
> disagree with her outlook on Ada.
>
> The site will require you to fill in a simple online subscription,
> but it's free and they won't send you spam unless you ask for it.
>
> Anyway, have fun.
>
> Mike Feldman