[GAP] Regarding Cyril's Reply to My Rant

[Robert Dewar]

Riehle, Richard (CIV) wrote:

> You know I will continue to support any initiative that attempts to 
> promote Ada.  We are all on the same side.   I am simply letting you
> know how things stand in this part of the DoD and with the DoD managers
> that I meet from time to time.   Some of them are even of the impression
> that Ada is now "forbidden."  Even some DoD program managers have the 
> idea that the abrogation of the mandate also meant the discontinuance
> of the use of Ada in favor of other languages.  This kind of
> misinformation
> is more perniciously widespread than might seem evident to someone who
> is actively involved in the daily success of Ada.

I think you should assume that we are very aware of the attitude of
people in all kinds of places, but if you think that the attitudes
you report here are representative of the entire DoD establishment,
that would be an incorrect impression.
> 
> I just walked down the hall and handed one of the Ada articles to the
> on-site person for one of our major DoD systems.  He said, "Java is
> it.  Java can do everything Ada can do and better.  It is easier to
> learn to use, and more people are using it ... blah, blah, blah." As
> long as we have this kind of attitude among decision-makers, we are
> going to be fighting an uphill battle.

You are *always* going to have this kind of attitude among decision
makers, there will always be misinformed people (probably those same
people you talk to think that mainframes have gone away and that
COBOL is no longer used),

> Not a good way for me to end my day.

I do think you should follow the adacore site, it
will supply you with some useful antidote of good news :-)