The Story of My Life so Far - Part 93 - My second job at CR2A: Managing the Groupe ExTRA
This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France
The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 92
When we were assisting the DCAN for the computer system of the tracking ship Monge, we helped them to choose the main contractor.
However, shortly after he was chosen, the main contractor that was a big company (whose name I do not recall) did not appreciate to be somewhat managed by us, CR2A, as we were a much smaller company. So, they went to the DCAN and told them to get rid of us, as they believed they did not need our help. So, the contract was modified and my first job at CR2A was over.
Groupe ExTRA
There were several projects at CR2A at this time that were using the Ada programming language that I had learned at the CAD and that I liked very much.
One of this project was the management of the "groupe ExTRA". The groupe ExTRA was initially an informal group of engineers from several defense industry companies that had been created by the DCAN.
"ExTRA" meant "Extensions Temps Réel in Ada", in English: Real-Time Extensions in Ada. The initial goal was to write a document describing the semantics of services for hard real-time applications written in Ada.
In 1990, I started to work with the two engineers at CR2A that were managing the groupe ExTRA and writing the document: Dominique Chandesris and Nasser Kettani.
I spent almost four years with Dominique and Nasser, managing the groupe ExTRA (organizing the meetings, communication between the different members) and writing the ExTRA document, that we hoped would become a secondary ISO standard.
During these 4 years, Nasser and myself, we went to several meetings of the ISO working group that was dealing with the standardization of the next revision of the Ada programming language.
I'll describe these meetings in another post. I met many interesting people during these meetings, including one French guy that will help me getting my next job.
Continue to Part 94
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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16
Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24
Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32
Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40
Part 41 - Part 42 - Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48
Part 49 - Part 50 - Part 51 - Part 52 - Part 53 - Part 54 - Part 55 - Part 56
Part 57 - Part 58 - Part 59 - Part 60 - Part 61 - Part 62 - Part 63 - Part 64
Part 65 - Part 66 - Part 67 - Part 68 - Part 69 - Part 70 - Part 71 - Part 72
Part 73 - Part 74 - Part 75 - Part 76 - Part 77 - Part 78 - Part 79 - Part 80
Part 81 - Part 82 - Part 83 - Part 84 - Part 85 - Part 86 - Part 87 - Part 88
Part 89 - Part 90 - Part 91 - Part 92
I think I actually read your paper back in the day on this, when I worked for Hollandse Signaalapparaten/Thales. I started there in 1996, so it was probably published in the early 1990s?
Yes, it was published in 1993 or 1994.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-56802-6_25
It is quite unfortunate to hear that the company you helped to choose, did not want your group CR2A to work with them. Sounds ruthless!!!. It seems like you had an interesting time with Dominique and Nasser. Working with them for nearly 4 years would have created a special bond of friendship between you three.
Eagerly waiting to read the next part :)
Very interesting...always to check on the next episode.