Wolfe and Misinformation

[Ted Holden]

From: William Thomas Wolfe @hubcap.clemson.edu
 
>   That's interesting, Ted... according to the Proceedings of the
>   Eighth Annual National Conference on Ada Technology (p. 140),
>   STANFINS-R was completed on time and within budget, and it was
>   observed that the Ada code ran significantly faster than its COBOL
>   counterpart.  This is despite the fact that STANFINS-R had to take
>   raw COBOL programmers and train them to be Ada Software Engineers,
>   despite the fact that a CICS binding did not exist when the project
>   began (and therefore had to be created during the project), and despite
>   the fact that a Datacom/DB interface also had to be forced into existence.
 
>   Not only was the Army's Information Systems Software Development Center
>   tremendously pleased with the results, the Air Force has just announced
>   its decision to use STANFINS-R as its financial software system as well.
 
>   Any other flat-out lies you'd like to spread?
 
I'm not going to call people liars over the net, Mr. Wolfe, but one of us is
misinformed and I don't think it's me.  I have friends who work with
that project and they tell me it's at least 100% over budget and between
8 and 20 months behind schedule, according to your point of view.  The
scheduled Dec. 89 time for completion of SAT was not met and they're
looking to begin SAT in June of 90, if possible.  The kindest assumption
I can make is that whatever you read was based on a schedule still in
the future when printed.  You should try to upgrade the level of your
reading material.
 
 
>   Regrettably for Mr. Holden, object-oriented Ada is available right
>   now.  Software Productivity Solutions has a product called Classic
>   Ada which serves as a Smalltalk-based object-oriented preprocessor
>   for Ada-language software developers.  Another object-oriented approach
>   along the lines of Zetalisp's Flavors (InnovAda) will soon be on the
>   market as well.  But Ted Holden will never let reality interfere with
>   his point of view, as he has so repeatedly demonstrated.
 
And you know perfectly well that Ada code thus generated would be
unmaintainable (as Ada code), ungodly slow (as if ordinary Ada wasn't),
and against the religion.  If they'd let you do that, they'd let you
simply USE Smalltalk;  faster, safer, cheaper, better.
 
>> Ada "gurus" are constantly talking about the advantage of Ada for
>> team projects, but here Sommerville/Morrison are making the point
>> that the do-everything language is so complex that the only team
>> likely to succeed at doing anything at all with it is the local
>> chapter of Mensa.
 
>   Well, Ted, if you aren't bright enough to handle Ada, I suggest that
>   you stay away from it.  However, you should keep in mind that STANFINS-R
>   has recently demonstrated that even COBOL programmers can be turned into
>   effective Ada software engineers.  Perhaps you should therefore see to it
>   that you refrain from using any language more sophisticated than COBOL!
 
I don't think it's the idea of ME programming in Ada which has Morrison,
Sommerville, Hoare, et. al. worried, Bill.  It's YOU.
 
 
Ted Holden
HTE