Impact of Ada and Object-Oriented Design in the Flight Dynamics Division at Goddard Space Flight Center SEL-95-001
Evaluation of ~20 systems implemented in ADA over ~10 years.
“Use of Ada and OOD in the FDD resulted in
- Increased software reuse by 300%
- Reduced system cost by 40%
- Shortened cycle time by 25%
- Reduced error rates by 62%”
Earliest projects had performance problems and development overruns
OO FORTRAN had reuse, but not cost, improvements
Verbatim reuse improves productivity ~5x.
Political failure - workforce lukewarm to Ada
Question: Is Ada better than C++, or is experience the difference?