> The idea that the defense contractors would drive the industry over-estimates just how much code they write. Sure it's millions of lines every year, but compa

> The idea that the defense contractors would drive the industry over-estimates just how much code they write. Sure it's millions of lines every year, but compared to worldwide C development it is a drop in the bucket. The implication I was making, in case it wasn't overt enough, had a lot more to do with money/budget/revenue than lines of code. The US DOD has massive budgets and over-spends those budgets on all kinds of wild things (so long as they can pass Congressional oversight, at least). The amount of money the US DOD spends on defense contractors will always attract a lot of attention, even if the amount of code that the US DOD gets back from all that spending will always be a drop in the bucket to the overall software industry. A different, unrelated, implication that is often used is that the DOD has increased requirements for safety, security, and oversight and that "defense-grade" or "defense-level" signifies something stronger than consumer-grade. You can see some of that in the 432's attempted marketing: imagine having access to "defense-grade" Ada-capable hardware in the microcomputer form factor at a fraction of then-current mainframe costs. Of course, in reality, not everyone needs "defense-grade" and the "dream" of using the same language and similar tools to the US DOD never had quite the appeal that Intel marketers must have hoped for. But you can certainly see why Intel marketers might have thought there some advantage in "defense grade". The US DOD and its defense contractors have never exactly "led" the industry, but they've certainly had a large shadow over of it for most of computing history. (Says the person sending this little collection of thoughts and opinions over a vast and incredible inter-network of networks that began as a Defense advanced research project.)