Re: Study shows Ada tools ten times more costly

[dog.ee.lbl.gov!overload.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.o]

In article <1993May18.101854.1528@sei.cmu.edu> wellerd@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (David 
Weller) writes:

>Dadgummit, Greg!  This is NOT related to Ada!  Tool cost is almost
>diretcly related to the PLATFORM, not the language.  I spent 10
>years in the military, five in electronic warfare and five in software
>development.  The costs I found were related to using tools on specialized
>hardware platforms: Honeywell, Tandem, HP Special Test Harnesses,
>and aging IBM boxes.  All these products are either low-volume commercial
>products or special-purpose military equipment.

That's right.  The DoD still thinks it's living in the 1940s, when it
was the dominant developer and buyer of high-technology equipment.  Those
funky special-purpose development systems are outrageously expensive
mainly because the development costs can be amortised over only a handful
of systems, rather than over millions.  Add, of course, the fact that
the DoD procurement system typically trebles the cost of everything.

And it has nothing to do with language. The outrageous cost of non
functioning special purpose Ada development systems is simply a replay
of the similarly outrageous costs of special purpose Jovial, CMS/2,
&c systems, ad nauseam.   But I agree the mandate did nothing to help:
instead of every service having a different programming language, every
service just "had to" procure a different implementation of that language,
with minimal commonality and reuse.  That's why most NATO countries long
ago implemented a single, defence-wide procurement system, both saving
money and gaining military efficiency.

>Now, I'm not excusing these costs either.  Our military culture is more
>paralyzed than the culture of large corporations -- changing from mainframes
>to low-cost PCs is prohibitively expensive in the short-run, which is
>how the military gets its budget.  Worse yet, even IF they change to
>PCs/Macs, security requirements drive up the hardware costs outrageously.
>(New oxymoron: TEMPEST-approved Laptop :-)  

No, it's outrageously cheap.  Typically, you can replace that mainframe with
a set of PCs of equivalent power for less than the *annual maintenance cost*
of the mainframe.  I've seen it done, and you can't get shorter run than that.
The problem is the bureaucracy, along with the fact that the people spending
that maintenance budget will fight tooth and nail to keep it.

And what security, kemosabe?  The electromagnetic emissions of a big iron
mainframe are an order of magnitude stronger than those of a set of PCs with
similar computing power.  I well remeber sitting in a van outside the
perimeter fence and watching the big discs thrash, over half a mile away!
The only thing you really need to secure is the communications lines, and
the simplest, low-cost solution is to use fibre optic cables.  Again, I
saw that done in a building in London, and the main cost was making sure
that every metre of cable was visible, which involved cutting a few holes
in the thick Victorian walls and floors.  It was expensive then - nearly
fifteen years ago - today, it's cheaper than copper wire for the same
bandwidth.  As for Tempest-approved laptops, the BATES program had approved
portable battlefield fire-control terminals, again nearly fifteen years ago.