Re: Ada Compiler Pricing (was Re: Hijacking a Thread was RE: NewAda compiler for .NET)

[Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM>"@raytheon.com>]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:

> Robert C. Leif wrote:
> > You have just explained a major problem US economy, executives who are
> > uneducated in technology.
> >
> >
>
> 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
>

Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to this.  I worked on a nuclear project some

20 years ago where the company had a time and materials contract with the
government.  The hardware team had got the hardware working by writing their
own software but the software team refused to use it at all - they spent a year
creating
massive documents and design materials but when we were less than 3 months from
the delivery date, they realized they still had no code.  So they brought in some
40
contractors to work overtime trying to crank out the code - but of course nothing
workable resulted and the contract was finally canceled.  I'm sure that management

realized this 'mythical man month' problem but the more they spent, the more they
made in any case.

Convincing management that a small team of exceptional people with the proper
tools can do a better and cheaper job that a large team of 'average' people with
error prone tools is not easy to do - it seems to go against their basic instinct
that the more people you manage, the more successful manager you are.

Jerry
--
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-- Jerry Petrey
-- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation (GPS/INS), Guidance, & Control
-- Raytheon Missile Systems          - Member Team Ada & Team Forth
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