From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,630c12e823d1bdf4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-01-15 17:29:24 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!sjc70.webusenet.com!news.webusenet.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3E260AE4.3060901@acm.org> From: Jeffrey Carter User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada Compiler Pricing (was Re: Hijacking a Thread was RE: New Ada compiler for .NET) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 01:28:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.184.1.42 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1042680483 63.184.1.42 (Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:28:03 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:28:03 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:33066 Date: 2003-01-16T01:28:03+00:00 List-Id: Robert C. Leif wrote: > You have just explained a major problem US economy, executives who are > uneducated in technology. > > -----Original Message----- > From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org] > On Behalf Of Richard Riehle > I see this kind of dumb management a lot in DoD contractor companies. > Somehow, these corporate level people are so enamoured of the slick > and glossy ads they fail to recognize quality when they see it. Xerox > has been particularly guilty of this kind of glitz thinking when it comes > to computing. They could own the marketplace now, if there had > been a well-functioning brain in the excecutive levels of the company > during the Seventies and Eighties. I'm not convinced this is "dumb management" as far as DOD contractors are concerned. Look at the contracts in question; you'll usually find that the contractor maximizes its profits by maximizing the cost of the project. Five software engineers at $100k/yr for one year is a lot less attractive than 100 coders at $30k/yr for six years. That the quality of the software created by the former is orders of magnitudes better than that of the latter isn't a factor. Indeed, if the contract is written right, a project that is finally terminated without creating any usable software may be the most profitable road for the contractor, and it never seems to affect their ability to win more contracts. -- Jeff Carter "Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!" Monty Python's Flying Circus