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Ada and Beyond Software Policies for the Department of Defense (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Pages 1-6

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From page 1...
... 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.
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From page 2...
... The committee did find that trends in the data, anecdotal evidence, and expert judgment provided a basis for its finding that Ada provides benefits in warf~ghting systems. However, based on its experience with the limitations of currently available data, the committee makes an additional recommendation that DOD institute a corporate data collection effort and develop metrics as a sound basis for evaluating software so as to guide future policy and management decisions.
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From page 3...
... FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The committee developed the following set of findings and recommendations for future DOD software policy and strategy. The recommendations address the use of Ada in warfighting software, the application in which the committee finds Ada to have demonstrated benefit, the proper scope and implementation of software policy; investment in Ada; and collection of data as a basis for assessing the effectiveness of software and software policy.
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From page 4...
... The current policy isolates the Ada requirement and the waiver process from other software engineering decisions, causing programs to make premature or non-optimal decisions (see Chapter 1~. DOD has already taken steps to broaden the policy focus in its draft revision of its programming language policy, DOD Directive 3405.~; this report recommends modifications to that draft policy (Appendix A)
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From page 5...
... 6. DOD's current Ada waiver procedure can be effectively replaced by adoption of the commercially established practice of using architecture review boards, a process that can also strengthen DOD's overall software engineering capability.
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From page 6...
... The software policy recommended by the committee for DOD is elaborated in Chapter 4, which also provides additional details on programming language selection criteria and explains the basic elements of the Software Engineering Plan Review process recommended by the committee. Chapter 5 discusses the committee's recommended strategy for investment in infrastructure for Ada.
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Key Terms

  • software engineering
  • warfighting software
  • programming languages
  • language policy
  • production factors

  • software policy
  • ada requirement
  • language decisions
  • plan review
  • key software

  • software tools
  • software metrics
  • competitive advantage
  • warfighting applications
  • engineering decisions

  • involving software
  • engineering plan
  • language choice
  • custom software
  • robust ada

  • waiver process
  • software development
  • warfighting application
  • architecture review
  • electronic warfare

  • current ada
  • dod software
  • ada infrastructure
  • language features
  • sound basis


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