There is a very well done story in Government Computer News on the update to the FAA En Route Automation Modernization System (ERAM) that was successfully completed by Lockheed Martin last October.
The ERAM update, which consisted of 1.2 million lines of code, was delivered on budget, six months ahead of schedule and met its technical requirements, which is unusual in this business. What makes it more interesting is that the software consisted of 1.2 million lines of Ada code.
In June of 1983, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued its first official policy on Ada directing its use for all DoD mission critical systems. This began the Ada-programming wars in earnest in the software engineering community, which ended in April 1997 when DOD reversed course and removed the Ada mandate.
While many defense programs moved quickly away from Ada, the language has continued to live on especially in the aviation/space software community and a few others where reliability (and now security) is important. For instance, nearly 90% of the code for the F-22 Raptor is in Ada, and it is used on the F-35 Lightening II, Boeing 777 and 787, and on the Airbus 380. Maybe someone out there has a more complete list.
I was once deeply involved with Ada in my early career in government and later as an employee of SofTech, so I felt a wave of nostalgia as I read the story. I doubt a revival of Ada is in the winds, but it is still a very worthy programming language that unfortunately never found sufficient support outside and especially within the government.
