The attached represents the results of the survey submitted at the end of the SIGAda'98 conference with numbers and comments interspersed. 38 surveys were submitted. Most were somewhat sparse. There were a few unreadable words. These words are spelt as best as could be determined with a "(sic)" afterward. There is no order for comments. Best and Worse speakers are presented in numerical order based on the number of surveys (in parenthesis).Please note that the "Worse" speakers are typically in the good category. In some cases editorial notes were provided based on other context in the survey. These are annotated with a "(ed. …)".

Compiled by Currie Colket 17 November 1998

SIGAda'98 Conference Survey

We would appreciate it if you could answer this short survey to help SIGAda plan the SIGAda conference next year to better meet your needs. The following questions address quality and value (meeting your needs and needs of your organization) for activities associated with SIGAda'98

  • If you did not participate in a particular activity, please leave item blank.

What did you like best about the conference:

  1. Technical sessions (3)
  2. The Keynotes (2)
  3. ACT Gilbert & Sullivan parody (2)
  4. Variety of materials
  5. Tutorial about Ada & CORBA, which included Ada experiences.
  6. Vendor presentations interspersed with sessions
  7. Displays (ed. No real context, perhaps a reference to the exhibits?)
  8. Papers & discussion, reference Computer Science Education
  9. Panels
  10. Uniformly well done
  11. DC Location (not enough $ to travel)
  12. Organization
  13. Dennis Frailey's Keynote Address
  14. Iaiguaur (sic) Integration & improvement ideas
  15. The Ada Javatheme
  16. Opportunity to interact with others using Ada
  17. Tutorials
  18. Getting together with other people who believe in Ada
  19. Opportunity to network
  20. Mix of keynote speakers and parallel tracks
  21. Learning new things
  22. Good mix of presentations
  23. Papers, Panels, Side discussions
  24. Workshop on Commercialization
  25. Great technical papers
  26. Discussions on high-integrity Ada
  27. Keynote Speaker / Panels
  28. Real-time help for my project
  29. Lessons learned, presentation, and networking venue
  30. The variety of topics
  31. Hotel and Local Restaurants (rest was a blur)
  32. Technical Content
  33. RAPID Tool

What did you like least about the conference:

  1. Nothing
  2. The organization of it (ed. - perhaps a reference to SIGAda? Or HW/PPT problems?) (2)
  3. Low Attendance
  4. Use of pc/ppt projectors for presentations - delayed/sabotaged at least 4
  5. The cost of DC location; Ridiculous and hotel - a poor choice given the downside of low attendance
  6. Parallel sessions (had to miss papers)
  7. Skimpy vendor list
  8. Minimal BOF sessions
  9. Communal self-deception about Ada's "promising future"
  10. Schedule conflicts
  11. No Cookies
  12. Expense
  13. 9 A.M. papers: too early to commute regularly
  14. Usual problem - which of parallel tracks to attend
  15. Things not starting on time
  16. Sense of "US" against "them" (Ada vs. C++, etc.) => too many complaints
  17. A little too much emphasis on Ada's failure to penetrate market - some OK
  18. Nothing
  19. Overly introspective about the decline of Ada
  20. Dragged out longer than warranted by content presented
  21. Conference spread out; locations were always changing
  22. Us versus them
  23. Where are the tools and example data for the Ada evangelist
  24. The vendor presentation room should be labeled with who is presenting, post a list of who and when at the vendor presentation room.
  25. Started over a weekend; continued over the Veteran's Day holiday.
  26. Many presentations were sales pitches.
  27. Some sessions were not kept on schedule
  28. Room Rate
  29. Hotel Expenses (2)
  30. Closed group, decreasing size
  31. No Lunch
  32. Little information on ARA or any group filling the AJPO void. What is the validation future? [In red - Oh, they just announced this for Thursday PM - sorry]
  33. Panels
  34. Pre conference organization and mailing (ed. - comment from an Ada-Europe attendee)
  35. Lack of DoD support

Keynote Presentations: 28Appropriate Number of Plenaries 8Too Many Plenaries 0 Too Few Plenaries

Quality: 18 Excellent 20 Good1 Average 0 Fair0 Poor

Value:12 Excellent 17 Good6 Average 0 Fair0 Poor

Comments on this year's keynote speakers:

  1. Low Attendance
  2. Most very good - Dr. Toole's lacked enthusiasm
  3. Nice variety, generally interesting
  4. Good variety too
  5. Good emphasis on safety-critical
  6. I thought it was a good mix of presentations/topics
  7. Interesting, but not relevant
  8. Content of keynotes should be availableIwritten form.

Suggestions for next year's conference:

  1. Invite students of CS
  2. Ada success stories
  3. Confronting Y2K Hysteria
  4. Stick with themes of high integrity and Java connection
  5. Need more safety-critical themes
  6. More on the future of Ada
  7. Technical keynote
  8. Invite people from other new fields
  9. Reduce the number of keynotes, present papers in plenary.

Best Keynote:

  1. Franco Gasperoni (12) - several noted best entertainment
  2. Dennis Frailey (8)
  3. George Romanski (6)
  4. Kevin Wooley
  5. Judith Klein (content)

Worst Keynote:

  1. Betty Toole (7) - one noted this would be a nice dinner speech
  2. Dennis Frailey (2)
  3. Judith Klein (2)
  4. George Romanski

Paper Sessions/Experience Reports:

Quality: 8 Excellent 16 Good6 Average 1 Fair0 Poor

Value:9 Excellent 11 Good8 Average 0 Fair0 Poor

Selection: 5 Excellent 14 Good7 Average 1 Fair0 Poor

Balance 3 Too Many Papers 11 Too Few Papers1 Too Many Reports 2 Too Few Reports

Comments on this year's speakers:

  1. Generally very good
  2. Many were Ada apologies, be assertive
  3. People who don't feel confident speaking English should get surrogates to speak for them
  4. As in any conference, quality variety from excellent to poor, which is why I marked average above; quality, value, and selection were much like most other conferences
  5. Do we really need the workshop reports on Thursday? The people who care about the workshops were at the workshops already.
  6. Good mix of papers, but many were sales pitches
  7. Generally good speakers, good topics
  8. Well prepared

Suggestions for next year's conference:

  1. Please debug presentation hw/sw before presenting.
  2. Show evolving inletillace(sic) methodologies & standards
  3. Better information on rooms / locations
  4. Allow enough time for choosing which portions of sessions are to be vicveo (sic)… ; this years format locked you into missing interesting topics
  5. 4 is too many parallel tracks - talks I was interested in tended to be simultaneous
  6. Need more lessons learned/experience reports
  7. Status of software engineer certification in the US
  8. Less sales pitches; more experience reports
  9. Reduce cost & tutorials
  10. Less parallel sessions
  11. Technical/education sessions should be spread, e.g., 3 tech sessions in Monday, 4 experience/edu sessions Wednesday morning => bad balance
  12. No workshop reports! (ed. Don't know if he is complaining because we had Workshop reports and could use the space for other activities, or if he was not aware of Workshop reports session; I think the previous interpretation.)
  13. Check projection facilities before
  14. Reduce the number of parallel tracks. Don't make 3-4 papers/sessions in parallel.
  15. Talk about successful projects
  16. More Tools

Suggestions for topics for next year's conference

  1. Some sessions on Ada95
  2. Ada in automobile computers
  3. Ada in medical computers
  4. Practice and policy of various industries (e.g., FAA, DoD) and related industries
  5. Experience with Annexes
  6. Ada education/promotion
  7. Patterns Ada 95 features & usage
  8. Better guidance on slide preparation (e.g., avoid blue foreground and blue background (ed. - reference to Steve Michell paper)
  9. Air Traffic Control
  10. Railroad Control
  11. Tool experience
  12. Ada applications
  13. OO with Ada
  14. Better quality, fewer tracks
  15. Windows applications
  16. Marketing pro to advise on how to sell Ada

Best Paper:

  1. Comparison of the Concurrency Features of Ada and Java, Brosgol (4)
  2. Large Distributed Control System Using Ada in Fusion Research, John Woodruff (3)
  3. Ravenscar Tasking Profile for High-Integrity Real-Time Programs, Brian Dobbings (2)
  4. Rendezvous is Dead, Macos & Mueller (2)
  5. Extensible Protected Types in Ada-EPT, Kiddle & Wellings
  6. Specification and Code Generation Tool for Message Translation and Validation, Plinta
  7. Reusable Lightweight Executive for CC Systems, Fleener, Moody, & Stewart
  8. Reusable Ada Libraries Supporting Infinite Data Structures, Arthur Duncan
  9. The PSP and Ada, David Silberberg (good use of data)
  10. Entire Reuse Track

Worst Paper:

  1. Converting Ada83 Serving Tasks to Ada 95 Protected Objects, Li, Xu, & Yu (3)
  2. Ada in Embedded Boards for Scientific and medical Instruments, Robert Leif (2)

(one commented "worst", but still "good")

  1. Looking into Safety with the HRG, Steve Mitchell (2) (was absolutely unreadable)
  2. Ada in an on-board Military Communication System, Victor Albertini (2)
  3. Rendezvous is Dead, Macos & Mueller
  4. The PSP and Ada, David Silberberg
  5. An Application Engineering Workbench for Tailoring Ada Flight Components, Ross Wainwright
  6. Layer 7 Routing Switch with Ada95 Software, Mike Kamrad (Sales pitch)
  7. There were many papers that would never have been accepted at previous conferences: technically inaccurate or rehashing old work.

Panels/Workshops: 27 Appropriate Number of Panels 3 Too Many Panels 2 Too Few Panels

Quality: 8 Excellent 19 Good7 Average 1 Fair0 Poor

Value:6 Excellent 19 Good7 Average 1 Fair1 Poor

(ed. One replied the selecting "poor" indicated negative value)

Comments on this year's panels:

  1. Not enough facts - too many guesses.
  2. Typically amusing with minimal content
  3. I prefer panels with short (< 5 min) opening statements and then discussion.
  4. Too negative on Ada usage; why emphasize negative stuff
  5. I like to hear anything Tucker Taft has to say.
  6. Good discussions, but no actions initiated
  7. Not enough Q&A time
  8. I was disappointed with the Ada After the Mandate Panel- I liked Tucker Taft and Dennis Frailey for professional content, but I felt the other speakers comments were not well formed and lacked technical content.
  9. Great Discussion

Comments on this year's workshops:

  1. Excellent - the 2 I went to were interesting and thought provoking
  2. More working workshops needed.

Suggestions for next year's conference:

  1. Represent technology and Market Outlook
  2. Breath & penetration of commercial/industrial Ada
  3. DII COE methods/issues
  4. Select topics in which there exists significant differences of opinion and have a formal debate. Also have a panel of Ada detractors and allow them the chance to make their case and respond to questions.
  5. Instead of a panel, maybe we need more round-table discussions. People want to participate and express how they feel.
  6. More working workshops needed.
  7. In the interest of more professional presentations and more efficient Q/A sessions, would you please encourage those that repeatedly approach the microphone with comments (and not questions) to limit their "questions". Thank you - I would like to see more technical quality throughout the conference, and this would help.

Exhibits:

Quality: 7 Excellent 21 Good4 Average 2 Fair0 Poor

Value:6 Excellent 14 Good8 Average 3 Fair0 Poor

Comments on this year's exhibits:

  1. A good selection
  2. Too few (4)
  3. Need more vendor booths
  4. Enjoyed Rockwell Collins information & Reuters list/display
  5. Glad we can still get good vendor support
  6. Good access to vendors/demos
  7. I don't really care about exhibits; I would be perfectly happy attending technical sessions all day.
  8. 2 days would suffice
  9. Smaller smallersmallersmaller
  10. OC Systems, while fun, looked a little out of place

Suggestions for next year's conference:

  1. Need more vendor booths - Provide value and audience to vendors!
  2. More commercial/contractors
  3. Emphasize continued presence of vendors encourages sales to this audience
  4. Add plastic shopping bags for vendor handouts.
  5. Blazenet?
  6. Invite more exhibitors
  7. Have exhibitors who could demo products
  8. The smaller room format was good for making a less intimidating area for discussion. The vendors looked a little starved for attention though.
  9. Keep doorprize distribution a bit shorter - if there are door prize drawings again during refreshment breaks in exhibit area, they should start promptly at start of break so people can listen for their names while standing in line for coffee and food. This year, many drawings took up the last half hour of 90 minutes breaks. People were stuck in back of room listening to Rush - couldn’tspend that quality time with the exhibitors.

Tutorials/Professional Development Seminars: Do next year?: 28 Yes 0 No 2 No Opinion

Selection: 5 Excellent 10 Good3 Average 1 Fair0 Poor

Comments on this year's tutorials/PDS selections:

  1. OO Programming in Ada95 by Mordechai Be-Ari was excellent
  2. Developing Solutions in Windows98/NT with Ada by Bingue was awful due to logistics/tech problems.
  3. Poor choice Sunday morning; Good choice Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.
  4. PDS was shallow - lacked substance
  5. Nothing much new (from earlier conferences)
  6. I liked Java emphasis
  7. Stop having this on Sunday! By doing that you make it impossible for me to participate.
  8. Many choices
  9. Didn't know about it in time
  10. I liked the ones involving Java and Ada
  11. Brad Balfour's tutorial was excellent
  12. Low attendance
  13. Good selection

Topic suggestions for next year's conference:

  1. I would have taken an evening tutorial if one had been available
  2. Ada and UML or OML (2)
  3. Some software engineering for young CS professionals
  4. Not on weekend
  5. Improving software engineering with Ada95
  6. Lower Price
  7. Less tutorials, keep elementary
  8. Keep the RT and embedded info - this is one of the few venues for Ada & RT Training
  9. A 2 day intro to Ada would be good

Balance: 31 Balanced 2 Too Technical 1 Too Managerial4 Too Basic 0 Too Expert

Comments on this year's balance:

  1. Fine for me, but not sure for others
  2. Seemed fine to me, but as a morning person, I'd prefer that things start sooner and end earlier, though.
  3. Not enough technical transfer - too much experience reports
  4. Good balance
  5. Need more examples of Ada
  6. A little more technical

Suggestions for next year's balance:

  1. Fewer Panels
  2. Join with embedded computing conferences
  3. Stress principles versus code in papers (checked too basic was from industry, SIGAda, & SIGSOFT)
  4. Some Ada technical training - in-house methods
  5. Should be technically balanced - is good; more technical as this year was
  6. More managerial - How do I select between Ada/Java for my application (options mixed system); between C++/Ada; between two candidate new hires w.r.t software engineering skills (vice programming skills); between CORBA & Annex E (Glade), etc.
  7. More technical presentations with supporting data & less sales pitches
  8. Keep lessons learned - really need this as a focal point for the networking opportunity at SIGAda

Affiliation: 5 DoD 2 Government (non-DoD) 23 Industry 8 Academia4 Foreign

Professional Societies 28 SIGAda 25 ACM 3 Ada-Europe 3 AJPO AdaIC Maillist

0SIGAPP 0 SIGBIO 1 SIGCAS 6 SIGCSE 6 SIGPLAN 2 SIGSOFT

Other (write-ins) 9 IEEE 1 WG9 1 PTA 0 GI several DC SIGAda, Baltimore SIGAda

Of note: All were SIGAda attendees, except for 11. These were:

3 selecting only industry; 2 selecting only industry and ACM

1 selecting only DoD (write-in: DISA); 2 selecting only Government (non-DoD)

1 selecting Ada-Europe only

1 selecting Academia only, 1 selecting Academia, Foreign, ACM, and SIGPLAN

General Notes (both by the same individual):

  1. Just a comment on the Tuesday evening entertainment: I wanted to extend a thank you to all those people who worked so hard to put such an unusual and professional presentation together. The singing was very well done and the story line worked quite well with the conference theme. The acoustics were much better this year, as the words were much more distinguishable than in years past. (Gilbert & Sullivan is already rnpert (sic) fine, and it is a shame to lose out on the hardwork of the lyricists) Could I make a suggestion to remove the "Linda Tripp" kind of references and action sequence from the plays? I would appreciate it, as would I suspect other women attending the conference (there are few enough of us attending the conference as it is.) Thank you for considering this. Otherwise a nice job!
  2. You did a very nice job given the resources and venue. I think the papers were very good and helpful in getting an idea where Ada has been used. I would like more ammunition in the reuse arena so to convince our customers and our own company to continue with Ada in our product line. (The SPO is convinced reuse has a 90% failure rate). You made the speakers and attendees very accessible for networking purposes, and the organizing people especially Rush and Ed) were always available for help. Good idea with the map - a cross reference both to who the people are by name would help networking. Thank you again, and I hope we have another get together in Redondo Beach.

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