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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-22 12:35:24 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.functional From: Ted Dennison References: <3B6555ED.9B0B0420@sneakemail.com> <87n15lxzzv.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <3B672322.B5EA1B66@home.com> <4a885870.0108112341.7ce02ac0@posting.google.com> <3B834E5D.B0D26AB1@adaworks.com> <9lvsic$bet9s$1@ID-9852.news.dfncis.de> <9m0193$grs$1@bird.wu-wien.ac.at> <3B83F9D6.73CB3E02@west.raytheon.com> Subject: Re: How Ada could have prevented the Red Code distributed denial of Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: When contacting newsranger.com regarding abuse please X-Abuse-Info: forward the entire news article including headers or X-Abuse-Info: else we will not be able to process your request X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 15:35:03 EDT Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:35:03 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12281 comp.lang.c:76215 comp.lang.c++:84925 comp.lang.functional:7631 Date: 2001-08-22T19:35:03+00:00 List-Id: In article <3B83F9D6.73CB3E02@west.raytheon.com>, Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey says... >I think you covered it pretty well, Ted. We had a very good >implementation of the engine controller in Ada but the management was so poor >that they allowed it to be re-written (after I left) in C or C++ from what >I've heard - to be more 'politically correct'. That was their downfall. Well, bad management is everyone's downfall unfortunately. I think Jerry's referring to another R&D engine controller, not the ones on the actual production destroyers (at least I hope he is). The manager in charge of that was just about the worst kind you can have: the idiot who thinks he is a genius. An idiot manager who knows he's an idiot and sticks to leading and listening can actually be quite good, but this other kind just destroys everything he touches. I can remember the IM (idiot manager) informing a visiting prospective customer that we were porting that perfectly working engine controller to C++ from Ada. When the customer incredulously asked why we'd do such a useless thing, IM told him essentialy that he, the customer, would refuse to buy it no matter how good the specs, if it were coded in Ada internally rather than the current hot new language. I'm guessing IM truly believed this. Apparently the prospective customer was not horribly impressed with IM's sensitivity to his heretofore undiscovered coding language "hipness" desire for his engine controllers, because he never did buy anything from us. :-) Of course they could very well have switched the Navy production stuff too. The pressure to use "commerical" technologies was quite intense there for a while. While I was there they were resisting somewhat because their main contracting agencies were (wisely) quite suspicious of that trend. The needs of most commercial users and of a battlefield shipboard environment are just *too* different (Can your PC sustain 100G's of shock and vibration?). But I don't know what has happened since. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com