wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu (Bill Wolfe) (01/15/90)
I have just returned from a plant trip to a large company which does software contracting for the entire Government, and I learned some very surprising things regarding the state of Government software technology. It seems that while some Government agencies are very progressive with respect to software technology (e.g., DoD, NASA), others are very naive about the developments which have taken place over the last 20 years in software technology. One customer, in fact, was described as having only recently discovered relational database technology, and still having no understanding of object-oriented database systems. The company is very pro-Ada, and has encountered some problems in trying to effect the insertion of Ada technology into some customer organizations; in one current example, a customer insisted that FORTRAN be used because there was a large installed base of FORTRAN software, and the customer's software maintenance staff only knew FORTRAN. So, a few questions for the Ada community: What is the current AJPO involvement with non-DoD agencies? Does AJPO simply provide assistance to the more progressive agencies such as NASA, or is there a Government-wide technology insertion program? How, as a practical matter, can a contractor go about overcoming the inertia which exists in some of the less progressive Government agencies? Thanks in advance... Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu