Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!sei!sei.cmu.edu!mcp
From: mcp@sei.cmu.edu (Mark Paulk)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Making "archaic" languages like C, COBOL illegal
Keywords: archaic, languages, C, Fortran, Basic, Ada, legislation, laws
Message-ID: <9693@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 31 Jul 89 20:46:58 GMT
Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu
Lines: 36

While visiting sunny, smoggy southern California, my colleague Albert Johnson
noticed an interesting article which he describes in the following post made
at the SEI.  It also seems of interest to netland...

=======

Did you know that Congressman A. F. Day has introduced legislation that
would make Ada the official computer language of the United States?  This
appeared in a sidebar in the Hurst Project Managers' Newsletter, v. 1, no. 6,
June 1989, p.10, being quoted from "Tools of the Trade" by Warren Keuffel,
"Computer Language" of April 1989, page 31.

Quoth Day: "This legislation is intended to increase the software
productivity of American Programmers.  When we are faced with increasing
competition from foreign programmers, it becomes essential to concentrate
our resources where they will do the most good."

Day's bill establishes civil and criminal penalties for any programmer who
uses archaic languages like FORTRAN, BASIC, or C.

If you have comments, you may write to:

The Honorable A. F. Day
401 Rayburn Office Building
Washington, D. C.  04189

=======

I would laugh, except there's always the possibility that this bill could
be passed.  Does anyone out there know what the status of this is?  If it
was discussed in April, I would hope that it's a dead issue by now.
Otherwise we might be facing another PI=22/7 by legislative fiat joke :-)
--
Mark C. Paulk 
    mcp@sei.cmu.edu
      "Maturity is a function of scar tissue."