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From: R. B. Love on 17 Feb 2007 18:41
It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular
after all" but local events make me think other wise.

I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one of
the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several
nations writing Ada. NASA has decreed that there must be a 15%
reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff
notices going to between 140 and 180 people. A good many of them are
Ada programmers.

All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++. LockMart, the same
people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on SBIRS,
seems determined to make everything C++.

Now some of us will be employed for years maintaining existing ISS
code. The transition from development to maintanence had to come
someday.

It would be very interesting to hear about new, large Ada projects
anywhere. Does someone still maintain a list?

If anyone is hiring Ada programmers, I expect your recruiting dollars
would go far in Houston.

From: Jeffrey Creem on 18 Feb 2007 09:58
R. B. Love wrote:
> It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular
> after all" but local events make me think other wise.
>
> I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one of
> the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several
> nations writing Ada. NASA has decreed that there must be a 15%
> reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff
> notices going to between 140 and 180 people. A good many of them are
> Ada programmers.


Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada. NASA appears
to have abandoned Ada around 10 years ago (That is not to say that
nothing was being done in Ada -- just most high visibility things that
you'd hear about were not done in Ada). I think it was part of their
Better, Faster, Cheaper (Choose any 0 of them) plan.

>
> All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++. LockMart, the same
> people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on SBIRS,
> seems determined to make everything C++.

Sounds about right http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/40968_us.html

>
> Now some of us will be employed for years maintaining existing ISS
> code. The transition from development to maintanence had to come someday.
>
> It would be very interesting to hear about new, large Ada projects
> anywhere. Does someone still maintain a list?
>

The old list stopped being updated.
Boeing appears to at least maintain some interest in Ada as the C-130
and 7E7 announcements indicate.

Since Ada is no longer "buzzword compliant" I don't think (most) people
using it are really into press release engineering anymore.


> If anyone is hiring Ada programmers, I expect your recruiting dollars
> would go far in Houston.
>

We almost never hire "Ada" programmers even for Ada jobs. It is true
that someone who is a great software engineer and knows Ada really well
is a great asset to have on a project but in general, I tend to care
more about finding great software engineers (which are hard to find)
more than finding someone that worked someplace where they used Ada
(which is not as hard to find as people think).

Of course if starting a new team on a new project, it would be a mistake
to not have a few people with a solid Ada background.


From: R.B. Love on 18 Feb 2007 12:15
On 2007-02-18 08:58:33 -0600, Jeffrey Creem <jeff(a)thecreems.com> said:

> R. B. Love wrote:
>> It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular
>> after all" but local events make me think other wise.
>>
>> I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one of
>> the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several
>> nations writing Ada. NASA has decreed that there must be a 15%
>> reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff
>> notices going to between 140 and 180 people. A good many of them are
>> Ada programmers.
>
>
> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.

Well, as I said, I expect to remain hired for 5 years maintaining that
Ada software that makes up the ISS. Let me see, there are between
45-50 flight computers on board the ISS on various US components. They
are all programmed in Ada. I believe the Russian flight computers use
C. The onboard, hand held PCs are mostly C/Linux. The large trainers
for ISS use Ada almost exclusively. That was another 1-2 dozen
programmers. Some of the foreign trainers use Ada.


> NASA appears to have abandoned Ada around 10 years ago (That is not to
> say that nothing was being done in Ada -- just most high visibility
> things that you'd hear about were not done in Ada). I think it was part
> of their Better, Faster, Cheaper (Choose any 0 of them) plan.

ISS was under way before then.



>
>>
>> All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++. LockMart, the same
>> people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on SBIRS,
>> seems determined to make everything C++.
>
> Sounds about right http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/40968_us.html

This requires a login so I can't see it. Care to summarize?


From: Jeffrey Creem on 18 Feb 2007 13:20
R.B. Love wrote:
> On 2007-02-18 08:58:33 -0600, Jeffrey Creem <jeff(a)thecreems.com> said:
>
>> R. B. Love wrote:
>>> It was very pleasant reading the recent thread about "Ada is popular
>>> after all" but local events make me think other wise.
>>>
>>> I have to believe that the International Space Station (ISS) was one
>>> of the biggest Ada projects in the world, employing people in several
>>> nations writing Ada. NASA has decreed that there must be a 15%
>>> reduction in spending on ISS and Boeing responded Friday with layoff
>>> notices going to between 140 and 180 people. A good many of them are
>>> Ada programmers.
>>
>>
>> Do you have first hand knowledge that ISS has a lot of Ada.
>
> Well, as I said, I expect to remain hired for 5 years maintaining that
> Ada software that makes up the ISS. Let me see, there are between 45-50
> flight computers on board the ISS on various US components. They are
> all programmed in Ada. I believe the Russian flight computers use C.
> The onboard, hand held PCs are mostly C/Linux. The large trainers for
> ISS use Ada almost exclusively. That was another 1-2 dozen
> programmers. Some of the foreign trainers use Ada.
>

Actually that is good to know. Your original e-mail led me to believe
that you were involved in Ada but it was not clear that you knew for
sure that other projects on ISS were Ada.

>
>> NASA appears to have abandoned Ada around 10 years ago (That is not to
>> say that nothing was being done in Ada -- just most high visibility
>> things that you'd hear about were not done in Ada). I think it was
>> part of their Better, Faster, Cheaper (Choose any 0 of them) plan.
>
> ISS was under way before then.

Obviously I should have considered that!

>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>> All the work I see being done for CEV is C or C++. LockMart, the
>>> same people who spiked Ada for with the Secretary of the Air Force on
>>> SBIRS, seems determined to make everything C++.
>>
>> Sounds about right http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/40968_us.html
>
> This requires a login so I can't see it. Care to summarize?
>
>

Interesting. I did not login to see it and don't have an account. I went
back and could still get there. I use firefox with Javascript disabled
and in that mode, you can actually see the article without logging in.
Didn't realize I was such a talented script kiddie :)

In any case, it was just a link to an article talking about the latest
LockMart JSF schedule slip. They do like to trash Ada (and occasionally
open source...Though they seem to be like the rest of the Defense
contractors and unsure if they love it or Hate it). No wonder things
keep slipping...
From: Björn Persson on 18 Feb 2007 18:25
Jeffrey Creem wrote:

> I use firefox with Javascript disabled
> and in that mode, you can actually see the article without logging in.

Haha! Client-side access control. Just wonderful!

> Didn't realize I was such a talented script kiddie :)

I think "noscript kiddie" would be a more appropriate term. ;-)

--
Bj�rn Persson PGP key A88682FD
omb jor ers @sv ge.
r o.b n.p son eri nu
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