Software engineering as a radical novelty: the Air Force Ada experience

Authors:
Richard R. Gross;David A. Umphress
Affiliations:
Air Force (Acquisition), SAF/AQK, Washington, DC;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
Venue:
TRI-Ada '90 Proceedings of the conference on TRI-ADA '90
Year:
1990

Citing 5
Cited 2

No Silver Bullet Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering

Computer
Software metrics: establishing a company-wide program

Software metrics: establishing a company-wide program
Managing the software process

Managing the software process
The real transition problem or don't blame Ada

TRI-Ada '88 Proceedings of the conference on TRI-Ada '88
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Softw

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Softw

Promoting Ada at the National Security Agency

TRI-Ada '91 Proceedings of the conference on TRI-Ada '91: today's accomplishments; tomorrow's expectations
Use of Ada in a commericial, small company environment

WADAS '93 Proceedings of the tenth annual Washington Ada symposium on Ada: Ada's role in software engineering

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

“It takes …15 to 20 years to mature a [software] technology to the point that it can be popularized and disseminated to the community at large” [10]. Education typically bears a large share of the blame. This paper critically examines education's role in the U.S. Air Force's 1980s insertion of Ada and Ada software engineering. It concludes that our principal error in the process was a failure to define “education” in a broad enough sense, to consider the educational needs of the corporate Air Force (“institutional education”) as well as those of the individuals in it. Lessons learned are summarized for application to future technology insertion efforts.