d***@erols.com
2010-11-01 01:07:22 UTC
The US Department of Defense has decided to discontinue the
development, maintenance, and –use- of JAS (nee JWARS) by year end.
JAS is a joint campaign model, (one that represents all the services),
consisting of over 1.1 million lines of Smalltalk that has been
developed over the last 15 years at a cost to the taxpayers north of
$110 million.
The cancellation is political. The services hate and fear JAS, and
have been trying to kill it for years. JAS, unlike their pet inhouse
models, is not easy to fiddle to get the results they want. Don’t like
the message, kill the messenger.
Joint campaign analysis will now be done using an Air Force model
called Storm, which has been made ‘joint’ by bolting $8 million of
maritime C++ code onto it. Storm lacks many features JAS already has
– WMD, C4ISR, TBMD, logistics, etc. – but it does not do pesky
inconvenient things like sink the odd aircraft carrier, so everyone is
happy. </rant>
JAS was possible only because of the power, simplicity, and
malleability of Smalltalk. Modeling and simulation involves a great
deal of experimentation that often leads to dead ends. But a modeler
rarely has to pitch all his code and start over, because he has not
nailed his feet to the floor by strewing type information like cluster
bombs throughout the code. Maintain the API, modify the Black Box, and
move on.
JAS also made extensive use of treating blocks as data in the fact/
rule system we called the knowledgeBase. The kB allowed the user to
have JAS reason about, and act on, important campaign events such as
achieving air superiority. The kB made JAS act in a more intelligent
way than if such events were scripted by time. The users loved it.
Other than that, I have no complaints. I spent 13 fun-filled years
doing everything from shooting TBMs with the airborne laser to
dropping sonobuoys from helicopters to protecting the carrier with
Nulkas. Interesting, challenging work in Smalltalk. And, I got paid
for it!
So, thanks to all of you who have helped me and my fellow jWarriors
over the years. And be sure to save those JWARS magnets – they are
sure to become collector’s items!
Cheers,
Donald [|]
A bad day with [] is better than a good day with {}
development, maintenance, and –use- of JAS (nee JWARS) by year end.
JAS is a joint campaign model, (one that represents all the services),
consisting of over 1.1 million lines of Smalltalk that has been
developed over the last 15 years at a cost to the taxpayers north of
$110 million.
The cancellation is political. The services hate and fear JAS, and
have been trying to kill it for years. JAS, unlike their pet inhouse
models, is not easy to fiddle to get the results they want. Don’t like
the message, kill the messenger.
Joint campaign analysis will now be done using an Air Force model
called Storm, which has been made ‘joint’ by bolting $8 million of
maritime C++ code onto it. Storm lacks many features JAS already has
– WMD, C4ISR, TBMD, logistics, etc. – but it does not do pesky
inconvenient things like sink the odd aircraft carrier, so everyone is
happy. </rant>
JAS was possible only because of the power, simplicity, and
malleability of Smalltalk. Modeling and simulation involves a great
deal of experimentation that often leads to dead ends. But a modeler
rarely has to pitch all his code and start over, because he has not
nailed his feet to the floor by strewing type information like cluster
bombs throughout the code. Maintain the API, modify the Black Box, and
move on.
JAS also made extensive use of treating blocks as data in the fact/
rule system we called the knowledgeBase. The kB allowed the user to
have JAS reason about, and act on, important campaign events such as
achieving air superiority. The kB made JAS act in a more intelligent
way than if such events were scripted by time. The users loved it.
Other than that, I have no complaints. I spent 13 fun-filled years
doing everything from shooting TBMs with the airborne laser to
dropping sonobuoys from helicopters to protecting the carrier with
Nulkas. Interesting, challenging work in Smalltalk. And, I got paid
for it!
So, thanks to all of you who have helped me and my fellow jWarriors
over the years. And be sure to save those JWARS magnets – they are
sure to become collector’s items!
Cheers,
Donald [|]
A bad day with [] is better than a good day with {}