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KEYNOTE ADDRESS
BY
THE HONORABLE EMMETT PAIGE, JR.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
COMMAND, CONTROL, COMMUNICATIONS AND
INTELLIGENCE
TO THE
TRI-Ada '94 CONFERENCE
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
NOVEMBER 8, 1994
Good Morning,
It's nice to be speaking to a group of professionals -- some
who share my appreciation for the benefits to be gained through the
use of the Ada programming language, and some with lingering
doubts.
This is an exciting time in the evolution of the Ada
programming language.
The new version, Ada 9X, will be here soon, and there are
indications of growing interest in its use within the Federal,
industrial, and academic sectors.
My commitment to Ada is based on facts as I see them from my
perspective.
The majority of the cost to DoD for software is in the
maintenance phase. We have known software maintenance would be our
biggest challenge for at least a couple of decades.
We developed Ada to address these challenges. The facts
indicate that Ada reduces maintenance costs, while increasing
productivity, quality, and most importantly reliability.
The payoff is there, and we are reaping it where Ada has been
used. Based on hard data, there is no doubt that Ada has been a
wise choice. It continues to make good business and technical
sense for the Department of Defense as well as elsewhere.
When I spoke to some of you at the Washington Ada Symposium,
I stated the DoD couldn't afford to continue to write systems in 44
languages.
The number "44" was based on the number of languages being
used within just one of our fee-for-service software development
activities.
When asked, "Why 44 languages?" the managers will tell me that
they are responding to their customers' demands. When I asked
them, "What's your preference relative to languages?" They
answered that their preference would be to use a single language.
So it's a mixed bag.
For your information, the DoD instruction on programming
languages provides a list of approved high order languages. I
assure you it doesn't contain 44 languages.
Being a responsive person myself, I can understand the
managers wanting to be responsive to their customers.
However -- and this is a big however -- as this
administration's official designated to be the policeman for
defense software systems, I assure you that I cannot and will not
condone the continuation of programming in languages that are -- at
a minimum -- in violation of defense policy, and are costly to the
taxpayers, and in the long run doing our customers a disservice.
After the Washington Symposium, I tasked the Ada Joint Program
Office to conduct a language survey to determine just how many
languages are currently used in fielded DoD systems.
I want to know if there has been a reduction or increase since
the late 1970's.
I should be getting the final results of that survey by the
end of the year. However, I will share with you some preliminary
findings.
The fielded systems we have looked at continue to work very
effectively. They are a monument to American ingenuity and its
technical superiority.
They have made significant contributions which have enabled us
to survive as the world's only superpower.
These systems, some of which are over 15 years old, rely on a
variety of proprietary languages. This translates into high
maintenance costs.
Some of these systems are now undergoing major upgrades, and
Ada is successfully being integrated into them as they are
reengineered and updated to add new features and functionality.
Based on our experience, these improvements will lower our
maintenance costs and improve reliability.
And that's why we developed Ada in the first place. Our goal
was not just to invent another software wheel, but rather to attack
the high costs of maintenance, which we believed would eat us alive
if we didn't do something.
We must continue to take aggressive action; the bear of
software maintenance costs remains at our door.
We cannot afford to be tied to proprietary solutions. Our
focus is to tap the commercial base whenever we can, and to
leverage it to reduce our costs of ownership. Ada allows us to do
this in a sensible and scientific manner.
The defense of our nation is dependent upon reliable, cost
effective software. I suggest to you that the private sector has
the same profound dependency on software.
Ada is the lowest cost, most maintainable, portable, and
reliable solution to the software challenge available today. It
has the tools we need to develop reasonable solutions to the wide
variety of applications we pursue within the DoD.
I wish I could predict it would become the economical choice
for those commercial sectors that have much in common with the type
of requirements we have in DoD, such as
- Medical Instrumentation,
- Manufacturing,
- Automotive, and
- Financial services industries.
These are among the primary industries upon which the well-being
our nation and its economy depend.
In these days when our warfighters face peril around the
globe, I want our troops to have confidence in the systems that
support them. They need systems based upon solid software
engineering concepts.
They need systems engineered with reliability and
maintainability in mind. Most of all, they need systems that can
be rapidly reprogrammed or assembled from interchangeable parts as
the threat changes.
Our warfighters deserve good software, and we are committed to
ensuring that they get it. That's why I am so adamant about Ada,
as I am still convinced that it is superior to all the other
languages.
Abraham Lincoln said, "He who has a right to criticize, is he
who has the heart to help."
I've heard a lot of criticism, so a year ago I invited the
community to help. We conducted the first of several planned Ada
Dual-Use Workshops.
The purpose of the workshop was to devise a strategy based on
your inputs to energize Ada and increase its commercial use.
A lot of positive events have happened as a result. I would
like to tell you about some of these accomplishments.
The input from the participants at the Dual-Use Workshop --
which included representatives from government, industry, vendors
and academia -- was hard-hitting and constructive.
Participants told us that the Department needed to continually
reconfirm its commitment to Ada.
They told us that we needed to accelerate the release of Ada
9X and get it to market quicker.
They told us we needed to make strategic investments in
education, bindings and tools, research, and technology transfer.
They told us we needed to market Ada better and get the
message out that it was a success.
Most importantly, they told us we needed to provide leadership
and execute a far-reaching and cohesive strategy.
These recommendations were heard, analyzed, and acted upon.
The Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) used your recommendations
in their plan which Mr. Riefer briefed to me in December of last
year. With my concurrence, he immediately began executing this
plan.
This plan aggressively pursues progress along five strategic
lines. They are to:
- Increase marketing,
- Establish partnerships,
- Provide support and incentives,
- Reinforce commitment, and
- Strengthen AJPO activities.
A great deal of progress has been made in each of these
strategies. Let me review the more significant of these with you
and you will understand why I continue to be upbeat when it comes
to Ada.
In the area of marketing, many of you have see the Ada success
stories that the Ada Information Clearinghouse has published in
cooperation with SIGAda. The 21 commercial stories, published to
date, highlight the successes that Ada has made in the fields of
banking, commercial aviation, telecommunications and the like.
The AJPO is also publishing success snapshots on-line weekly.
The current distribution list of over 200 people includes most of
the senior leadership within the Department of Defense.
Our commercial marketing campaign is also well underway. Many
of you have seen the advertisements in such publications as
Computer World, Dr. Dobbs' Journal, and Software Magazine.
The posters we've developed have been a great success,
including the one with the surfer on it. The marketing information
package we've developed, which contains a catalog of vendors, has
been distributed to over 300 interested people within our target
areas.
Most important, the Ada vendors have piggybacked their
advertising along similar lines by emphasizing increased
reliability with the use of Ada within safety-critical markets.
We have also taken the initiative and started spreading the
word at non-traditional trade shows and conference events.
We were at the Computer Science Conference and COMDEX and
several other non-DoD conferences.
At Object World, we not only exhibited, but a Navy command won
a major award for an Ada development.
The Navy was presented "The best object-oriented system using
a non-object-oriented language" award for the TYCOMS Readiness
Management System.
It was programmed using the AdaSAGE tool. AdaSAGE also
stimulated another award.
Government Computer News just presented Mr. Al Wynn an award
to recognize his efforts at the Department of Energy for AdaSAGE
support to the DoD. Actually, the Department of Energy can thank
the Marine Corps for exposing them to Ada. I want to publicly
acknowledge the Marine Corps' Major Dave Wood for working with
DoE's Idaho National Engineering laboratory to develop AdaSAGE.
Major Wood exhibits the "Can do" Marine attitude.
Major Wood worked with the DoE to develop AdaSAGE in 1987. By
1990 it was being used by every Service within DoD, and in 1991 it
caught hold in industry.
The Partnerships initiative in the Dual-Use Plan consists of
partnerships with educational institutions, government agencies,
and industry.
The AJPO has pursued the academic partnerships very
aggressively. We were told at the workshop that we needed to
overcome a number of barriers to the teaching of Ada within our
universities and colleges. With this in mind, the AJPO has entered
into the following educational partnerships:
- To make the Ada tools affordable, we are partnering to
develop an Ada 9X textbook with an inexpensive compiler environment
shrink-wrapped to it. This textbook will sell for about $50 in the
university bookstores.
- We have also developed the Ada 9X GNU translator. This
software is available free to educators from the Free Software
Foundation. It is being used throughout the world to get
familiarity and experience with Ada 9X.
- We have also awarded 60 university contracts to help
universities move to Ada. The course material and teaching
artifacts developed under these awards are being cataloged and will
be made available to the general public via the ASSET reuse
library.
- Another 15 to 20 university grants are in process of being
awarded to take Ada into engineering and business schools in
addition to traditional computer science departments.
- A partnership with the Air Force Academy was developed to
convert its Department of Astronautics from FORTRAN to Ada.
- A survey of the Service schools and academies was completed
this summer, and an action a plan is being formulated to increase
the use of Ada in these schools.
- Based upon this survey, a best-of-breed courseware CD-ROM
was developed to provide Service school educators with educational
resources. We plan on updating the CD-ROM later this year. It too
will be made available to the general public.
We are also pursuing government partnerships.
ARPA has stepped up to Ada under a number of separate
initiatives. We are partnered on a research effort to develop a
persistent database binding; this is being done via an Ada 9X
object-oriented database binding. This project will investigate
use of data in a language-independent manner.
Another government partnership is with the Department of
Energy to improve the human interface of AdaSAGE. I understand the
new release of this tool has incorporated the Windows interface
requested by the user community both in industry and government.
Earlier this year I signed a letter giving permission to use
Ada 9X in certain development efforts. Each of the developmental
systems will be compiled on a validated Ada 9X compiler before
being fielded. We expect to have some of these systems ready to go
when the first compilers are ready for validated use, sometime in
early 1995.
The AJPO is working with DoD activities to support early usage
of Ada 9X on several projects. They are:
The Joint Advanced Strike Technology Program,
The Sustaining Base Information Support System,
The SQS-53 sonar, and
The Common Applications Support System.
Each of these programs will develop software in Ada 9X prior
to the release of the first validated compiler, using its own
funds. The AJPO will provide training and transition support to
help.
In addition to these four programs, I am glad to say that
Lt Gen Edmonds, the Director of DISA, has identified two Global
Command and Control System applications for transition to Ada 9X.
The DISA efforts will be accomplished with AJPO transition
support during the next 6 months using in-house resources.
The lessons learned from these projects will be captured and
published. In this way, other software development activities can
learn from their experiences and be better able to take full
advantage of Ada 9X's features.
The third strategy area provides support and incentives for
Ada 9X. We have heard over and over, an inhibitor to the use of
Ada was the lack of bindings and tools. Abraham Lincoln said, "It
has ever been my experience that folks who have no vices, have very
few virtues." While Ada had her problems, she also had many
distinct and unmatched positive traits.
Ada has the power to provide fault tolerant, reliable systems.
But Ada has been criticized, not for itself, but for the lack of
support tools.
We must turn this around with Ada 9X. Bindings for POSIX,
Windows, Motif, SQL, and Common Object Request Broker Architecture
are in development.
The source code for these bindings will be placed in the
public domain when they are completed, so anyone can take advantage
of the work.
A tools survey is being completed to identify the needs of the
Ada 9X user community. In addition, a number of tools are being
developed to deal with shortcomings and ease the use of Ada 9X.
Finally, we are investigating the feasibility of awarding an
umbrella contract for Ada 9X compilers. We hope to leverage the
buying power of the Department to get compilers for our programs at
the most affordable prices.
The fourth strategy area is to "Reinforce commitment". If
there was ever a doubt about my commitment, I want you to put your
mind at rest about that. Mr. Longuemare and I signed out a letter
in August clarifying the Department's continued commitment to Ada
as it relates to being a Military Standard. Ada 83 is not just
Military Standard 1815A. It is also an ISO (International
Standardization Organization), FIPS (Federal Information Processing
Standard), and an ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
standard. Ada 9X will also become an ISO, FIPS, and ANSI standard.
Chris Anderson has done an excellent job in shepherding Ada
through this process. Approval by ISO for Ada 9X is expected this
December.
The final strategy is in the activities of the AJPO. These
include putting into place validation and evaluation test suites,
providing transition support, and interfacing with the public.
The validation and evaluation test suites will be distributed
along with test scripts, so that our Ada validation facilities will
be capable of validating compilers in March of next year.
Very soon our Ada 9X Transition Handbook and Ada 9X Transition
Plan Template will be cleared for public release.
We have held over 20 Ada 9X for Ada Programmers classes so far
this year, training over 300 DoD software professionals in the
rudiments of Ada 9X.
The Ada Quality and Style guidelines published by the Software
Productivity Consortium is also being updated for Ada 9X. A
monograph series has been spawned to put details of case studies in
the hands of practitioners.
The Ada Information Clearinghouse Internet host will be
accessible via the World-Wide-Web via MOSAIC by the end of the
year.
This information resource is updated daily and serves as the
source of Ada information. It contains more than 3,412 information
files and reports. And finally, the Ada Information Clearinghouse
Library is now open to the public at 5600 Columbia Pike in
Arlington, VA.
Mr. Reifer, as the Director of the AJPO, is reinforcing the
Department's commitment to Ada every day by aggressively managing
over 200 tasks aimed at accomplishing the initiatives the community
said were needed to make Ada successful.
From where I sit, the future of Ada still looks very
promising.
Let me challenge you to help. In the late 19th century an
American writer, Elbert Hubbard said, "The world is moving so fast
these days, that the man who says it can't be done is generally
interrupted by someone doing it."
The train is moving and momentum is building rapidly for Ada.
If we need to do other things, I need to know.
I need your help to feed the fires and keep on accelerating.
Tell me what you need to be successful in your use of Ada. I'll
listen, and consider all suggestions. I am very excited about the
prospects.
Thank you for your attention.