Computer Science

Ada and Beyond: Software Policies for the Department of Defense

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Ada was developed in the 1970s by the Department of Defense (DOD) and adopted in some DOD programs until its use was required for new software development in 1987. It has been employed as a tool for developing quality software and as a DOD policy lever to encourage DOD organizations and programs to adopt modern software engineering principles. Changes within DOD, the software engineering community, and the commercial software industry have led DOD to reassess its programming language policy. The Committee on the Past and Present Contexts for the Use of Ada in the Department of Defense was created by the National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board to review DOD's programming language policy and the question of Ada's role in it. This study presents findings and recommendations developed by the committee for DOD's consideration in efforts to revise its current policy. The committee concluded that a vigorous Ada program would enhance the reliability and performance of DOD warfighting systems, and it recommends that DOD continue the use and promotion of Ada in such systems. However, the committee found significant problems with the two primary components of DOD's current strategy for Ada. First, there are problems in the scope, design, and implementation of the current programming language policy, which requires the use of Ada for all software to be maintained by DOD; the committee recommends several modifications. Second, DOD's plan to discontinue investments in Ada technology and user-community support by the end of 1997 will weaken the Ada infrastructure and work against any requirement for DOD systems to use Ada in the future; given the large installed base of Ada code in warfighting systems, targeted investments in Ada are justified.

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Call Number

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Publisher

: ., 1997

Collation

1-114

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-309-58980-0

Classification

NONE

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