- Ada 95: Software Developers, look no further!.
- Letter from the AJPO - Donnald J. Reifer, Chief.
- Ada 95 Launch Strategy
- Why Ada?
- Ada 95 - Building on Strength
Ada Techniques
- Making the Transition to Ada 95
- Is it Time for You to Transition to Ada 95
- The AdaIC On-line
- How Can I...?
- Automatic 83-to-95 Translation
- Writing for 95 in 83 - It's Been Done Without Trying!
Taking the Lead
Ada 95 Resources
- Compiler Vendors Gearing up for Ada 95
- Publications Available to Assist You in the transition to Ada 95
- Screen Machine at Work for Ada 95
- Training Opportunities Available Now
Newsbits
Ada Events
Ada made history on February 15, 1995, when the International Standardization Organization (ISO) published the 1995 version of the Ada language in Geneva, Switzerland. ISO approval makes Ada 95 the first internationally standardized, fully object-oriented programming (OOP) language. Following the ISO publication, Ada 95 was adopted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an American standard and by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). Ada's adoption as an ISO, ANSI, and FIPS standard culminates an international process of unprecedented scale for a programming language. At the onset of the revision process, software developers made 750 recommendations to revise the language. Programming teams analyzed, prioritized, and responded to these recommendations through the four-year revision process. Every step of the way, computer experts world-wide provided reviews and comments.
"No other language has ever been created following written requirements refined by the world's best in computer programming and software development. Ada 95 is the culmination of these efforts, thereby delivering the most viable, cost-effective language for the development of long-term software solutions," said Chris Anderson, project manager for Ada 95 and co-editor of the revised standard reference manual.
The revision retains the inherent integrity and efficiency of Ada 83, as the first advanced building-block language to assemble a host of important features while adhering to the demands of modern software- engineering practice. In addition to OOP support, the Ada 95 provides more efficient real-time programming facilities while remaining fully portable, and addresses vital concerns for business such as the effective integration of legacy systems and upward compatibility.
New features include international character sets, improved generics (similar to C templates), and a set of changes that will reduce the time needed to recompile large systems. Ada 95, like Ada 83, is a strongly- typed language, with full support for encapsulation and information hiding. Increased functionality allows for support of smaller, more dynamic systems; unnecessary assumptions have been eliminated, existing features generalized, and special cases or restrictions have been removed.
"Ada has always been strong in object-oriented design and analysis. The revision builds on that strength with full support for OOP, along with the maintainability that makes it the most logical choice for safety- and business-critical applications," noted Chief Language Designer, S. Tucker Taft. "The primary reason for choosing Ada is still the bottom line - it's cheaper to build a reliable system in Ada than in any other language."
[This article was extracted from an Ada Resource Association press release, dated Feb. 15, 1995. For more information on the ARA, call 614/442-9232.]
This issue of the newsletter focuses on the launch of Ada 95. Thank you, Chris Anderson for a job well done!
The ISO's publication of the Ada 95 standard on Feb. 15 represents more than just five years of hard work for Chris and her team. It represents a major milestone for the Ada community: Ada is now the world's only internationally standardized, object-oriented programming language.
However, just having a standard isn't enough. We need to energize the community to utilize it. As many of you know, the AJPO has taken an aggressive posture towards making the launch of Ada 95 a success. We need your help, too - as you will hear in my summary, once I've told you what we are doing to pave the way towards success.
First, let's look at our launch and then discuss yours.
The AJPO has a number of programs underway to partner with academia, industry, and defense organizations to stimulate commercialization and accelerate the movement towards Ada 95. As noted in the "Newsbits", we are seeking partners via our university grant programs - and via the Ada Technology Insertion Program (ATIP). We are also planning to partner with industry via cost-sharing arrangements later this year.
Many of the vendors have also prepared guidelines for making the transition. I would suggest you contact them for help as well especially in utilizing their products.
This version of the newsletter provides you with insights into how to make the transition.
You'll note the pointers I've given you on what we are doing to help you make the transition. (See the segment below for more.) Let me assure you that I did this on purpose - because I don't want you to wait. Many of us got burned in the mid-1980s because we rushed into Ada 83 and the infrastructure just wasn't there to support us. We took hits because the compilers were immature, and tools and bindings were not available. However, this is a different age. We have kept these mistakes in mind as we plotted and planned our Ada 95 launch. While I can assure you there still will be problems, hopefully they will be new ones and not be as severe as those we encountered the first time we launched Ada.
Donald J. Reifer, Chief Ada Joint Program Office Defense Information Systems Agency
STATUS: Accomplished; ISO/IEC 8652:1995; ANSI 8652:1995; FIPS 119-1
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See the "Ada 9X Update" in the previous issue, and check out the feature article of this newsletter - "Why Ada?".
STATUS: On the way
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See "Ada 95 Resources", for a summary of the first announcements of Ada 95 compilers - and GNAT is available as well.
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: The ACVC is available on the AdaIC Internet host. See AdaIC Online for information on accessing the host. The first of the anticipated many compilers to be validated is already in the queue.
STATUS: The initial release with Ada 95 capabilities has been issued.
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: ACES is available on the AdaIC Internet host. See AdaIC Online for information on accessing the host.
STATUS: First releases becoming available.
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See "Ada95 Resources", and " NewsBits" .
STATUS: Accomplished
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See "Ada 95 Training Available Now"; firms are offering Ada 95 courses publicly, and many universities are using courseware products on the ASSET reuse library and PAL as resources to update their offerings. In addition, the availability this fall of our affordable Ada 95 Academic compiler/textbook package will help stimulate students to try Ada.
STATUS: Accomplished
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See " Making the Transition to Ada 95" for some of the guidelines being advanced for Ada 95.
STATUS: Accomplished
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See the clips in this issue on the JAMES experience and on Screen Machine.
STATUS: Accomplished
EXAMPLES IN THIS ISSUE: See the Calendar, for AdaIC conference participation. See AdaIC Online for information on accessing the AdaIC Internet host. The AdaIC now represents the industry at many non- Ada trade shows; also, we've put information on-line via our World Wide Web site; and the Ada Resources Association (formerly the Ada Software Alliance) has taken on the marketing challenge through ads, seminars, and direct marketing activities.
The "monster" in question is not a giant information system somewhere in the Department of Defense (DoD); it's not a weapons system, or anything that might be covered by the DoD's Ada mandate. It's not in some government agency, or defense contractor.
Nonetheless, the demands on this monster are as great as those on many weapons systems, and the consequences of failure will affect people immediately.
This "monster" is Weirton Steel, a sprawling steel mill in Weirton, W.V. It's an employee-owned company, and the economic health of the surrounding valley depends to a large extent on Weirton Steel. Ada was chosen for the software that runs Weirton because it works - because of the reliability of code written in Ada, because of the ease of modifying it to suit changed needs.
It was Ken James, General Supervisor of Weirton's Hot Mill, who referred to the Weirton system as a monster. "I don't get a lot of phone calls in the night," said Bill Zickefoose, process automation engineer. "Even though we have 24-hour coverage via beepers and things like that, we don't get very many calls. The reason we don't get a lot of calls is not because they're going to sit there with the mill down. It's because the software keeps running. It's capable of regenerating and going ahead."
The need for reliability is even more pressing for air-traffic control - highly distributed, real-time systems; but that absolute concern doesn't mean that people in air-traffic control ignore economics. In fact, the two work together in the case of reuse.
Ceselsa is working on air-traffic control centers all over Spain. "All the centers are totally interconnected and integrated," said Javier Ruano, Ceselsa's ATC System Manager for Spain, and "the software is 95% in Ada." Diego Macia, ATC Systems Manager, International, noted that they are also working on the air-traffic control system for Oslo, Norway. There they have achieved "close to 80% of reuse". And with other programs, they are reaching an even high percentage - with programs under development in Amsterdam, Bombay, New Dehli, Hong Kong, and Frankfurt.
One of Ada's virtues is that it makes it easy to integrate the work of large, scattered groups of programmers, working over long periods of time. But Ada works equally well for small companies working with tight deadlines - and gives them a competitive edge in competing with the big guys.
Paranor Software had only 15 people and five months to start from scratch and develop a pilot to compete against two large companies for a project of the post, telephone, and telegraph (PTT) administration in Switzerland. The PTT acts as a banking system as well as a phone and postal service, and it needed to computerize its financial records for a half-million customers.
Said Paranor's co-founder, Peter Wannheden, "One contributing factor may be that we convinced the customer that our methodology - our software methodology including the use of Ada - would guarantee a high-quality product."
And that has turned out to be true. "We've had a very, very low rate of errors which were determined after installation of the software," said Mr. Wannheden.
"I'd really find it hard to run this company without Ada. I don't know what we would have here."
Ada's strengths are not merely in the software-engineering principles it supports, but that it's a standard. Users don't buy merely a language; they buy and use compilers. The process of validating compilers contributes to Ada's usefulness on the job.
For Vin Joag, FMV Software Manager for Smiths Industries, this was "one of the major reasons we selected Ada ... we found that the language is very defined. It had compilers of the quality which we absolutely must have to develop safe and essential systems."
-- Noel Wright, GEC Marconi Avionics, Engineering Manager
The Ada standard has also encouraged portability. When we think of portability, most of us probably think of using code on one platform successfully and then later porting it to another. At least one company, however, found themselves using the same code in the same project on three different processors.
The flight-control system for the Boeing 777 uses three different processors for redundancy.
"The Ada has been written just once," said Noel Wright, Engineering Manager at GEC Marconi Avionics, "and we're then using three different compilers. One of the big things of Ada was to make sure that you could actually port it around very easily."
-- John Malcolmsen, JEOL, Assistant Manager/NMR Software R&D
Going from the skies down to the microscopic world, you'll find Ada doing jobs that can't be done otherwise.
This was the case for JEOL, the fifth-largest analytical-instrument company in the world. In one case, they're looking for the structure of protein molecules. This information is used in studying diabetes and other diseases.
"With Ada, we were able to build software that became intuitively obvious," said Bill Bearden, operations manager.
John Malcolmsen, assistant manager/NMR software R&D, pointed out that, "We needed to have tasking, and the only we way we were going to get tasking was to go with Ada. Some applications may have a few dozen concurrent threads; our application has a few hundred concurrent threads. And with that level of concurrency, there just isn't any good way to manage that, except Ada."
But neither Ada nor tasking has to be all work and no play. In fact, it can be a game - in this case, at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI).
Dave McAllister, Enabling Technolgies PM at SGI's Visual Magic Division, explained Paintball:
"The basic premise of this was a multi-player, multi-tasking, virtual- reality game. We actually presented it to the rest of the engineering team here at SGI, and we were told ... that it was a great concept, but it would never work." That might have been a sound judgement - except for Ada.
"Ada has been really the reason that you can make Paintball here," according to Mr. McAllister. "Ada itself is the first language designed for multiple processing, and we're actually running on a system with four CPUs in it."
He pointed out that there are "anywhere from 200 to a thousand Ada tasks appearing, doing something inside the graphics".
And just as reuse worked with air-traffic control, it worked with games - and with a game quite different from Paintball. Fireflight is a "very different problem, a mission-planning scenario," said Mr. McAllister. But Fireflight "reused roughly 65% of the code we wrote for Paintball".
Bill Carlson, vice president/CTO of Intermetrics, Inc., said that "the main thing that has changed" since 1983 is the ready availability of compilers. "Today, anybody can get a good Ada compiler, and in fact, you can get one for free" - referring to the Ada 95 GNAT compiler available on the Internet.
Tucker Taft, Chief Language Designer for Ada 9X (Ada 95), pointed out that Ada 95 builds on Ada 83's excellence in handling "a large system where you had relatively well understood requirements and a very disciplined engineering process." Ada 95 continues that, "but it's also oriented towards, let's say the smaller system, the more dynamic system, the system where the requirements aren't as well defined in advance. I don't think you should think of Ada [95] as a new language. It's really Ada 83 - with some restrictions removed, some new features added, and basically sort of a more open feel."
Author John Barnes, in updating one of his books on Ada, offers that the "delightful" point is that "old difficulties have been cast aside" and he found himself on "much friendlier ground".
This article is based on a new video, "Ada - The Language for a Complex World". A 17-min. version was designed for CTOs and a 9-min. version for CEOs. A limited number of copies of the videotape are available through the AdaIC.
According to Stuart Liroff, Engineering Manager at Silicon Graphics: "One of the reasons Ada 95 is so powerful is due to the strong typing, and the inheritance that it offers you from derived types." He noted that "the reason this is so important is because typing allows you to characterize the objects that you're modelling in your environment or your application. And Ada 95 has strong typing, much stronger typing than any of the other languages."
The result, said Mr. Liroff, is that "you'll find that with strong typing, you will get more correct and more true code out of your engineers."
The Handbook explains the opportunities, issues, and answers involved in adopting Ada 95; the Guide helps managers who have decided to adopt Ada 95 to create a detailed transition plan. Both the Handbook and the Guide are available in paper copy from the Ada Information Clearinghouse (AdaIC) and for downloading from the AdaIC's Internet host (sw-eng.falls-church.va.us).
These documents cover a wide range of topics - among them, issues related to project planning; tools and environments; upward compatibility; technology transfer; software-development methodologies; commercial off-the-shelf products, legacy software, and multi-language development; and the adoption process and personnel.
If a project adopts Ada 95 to exploit new technologies such as object- oriented programming, then learning to use those new technologies will be a major item contributing to the risk of cost and schedule impacts. These underlying technology shifts are present whenever one changes programming languages, however.
The most important techniques are:
When transitioning from another language to Ada 95, the paradigm and mindset shifts are greater than they are when moving from Ada 83 to Ada 95. Each programming language brings with it a large collection of techniques and methods that reflect "how software ought to be built" using that language. Changing from one language to another is not as simple as switching from one make of automobile to another. Rather, it is more akin to switching from driving a car to piloting a jet.
Managers should take the following steps to make sure that their software developers successfully adopt the Ada 95 culture:
Baud Rate: 300-28,800 Data bits: 8 Parity: None Stop Bits: 1 Flow Control: XON/XOFF Terminal Emulation: VT100Once a connection is achieved,
login: guest password: Ada4sw-engIf the "information superhighway" is new to you, don't hesitate to call the AdaIC at 1/800-AdaIC-11 (232-4211) or 703/681-2466 for help in getting connected. Or send e-mail to action@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us.
The Compatibility Guide is aimed at developers currently writing or intending to write Ada applications where enhancement or maintenance is required beyond 1997 (when Ada 83 compilers will no longer continue to be validated). The Guide's purpose is to alert such projects to any upward incompatibilities between Ada 83 and Ada 95 - so that Ada 83 software can be written to avoid these incompatibilities long before transitioning to Ada 95.
The Guide includes a set of 12 guidelines for users to make their Ada 83 code upward compatible with Ada 95. The guidelines avoid all but the obscure incompatibilities, and are given below.
These guidelines do not seriously constrain the writing of code under Ada 83; some of them could be regarded as good style guidelines in any case.
The great majority of Ada 83 programs will not be significantly affected by these changes, and the most likely incompatibilities will be automatically detected at compile-time. Moreover, tools are being developed to aid in the reliable detection of any problems and thereby smooth the process of transition. (For instance, see "Reports Available on Translating Ada 83 to Ada 9X", in the October (Fall) 1994 issue of this newsletter, and the related note on automatic translation accompanying this article.)
As noted above, many of the proposed incompatibilities will not occur in normal programs - the Ada 83 semantics being known only to the most erudite of Ada programmers. Therefore, each incompatibility is classified according to how likely a normal Ada 83 program of a reasonable size would contain an occurrence of the incompatibility. Incompatibilities are also classified according to whether they cause illegalities at compile-time or different semantics at run-time.
The version of the Guide available on the Ada host corresponds to the International Standard version of the language, published in February 1995. The incompatibilities are presented in the order of the appropriate section of the Ada 83 Language Reference Manual (ANSI/MIL- STD-1815A, Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language, Department of Defense, January 1983).
(Incompatibilities referenced below are found in the Guide's "Detailed Descriptions" sections.)
[Romel Rivera, Xinotech Research, Inc., Technology Center, Suite 213, 1313 Fifth Street, S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55414; 800/379-3844, 612/379- 3844; e-mail: info@xinotech.com.]
For the trial, they selected an existing Ada 83 application called the Joint Automated Message Editing Systems (JAMES). The software consisted of approximately 48,000 lines of Ada code (counted as carriage returns) or approximately 14,000 Ada statements (";" count).
What the team found was that the existing software was 100% upward compatible. There were no changes needed because of the move to Ada 95.
One factor that may have contributed to this was the fact that the software had already been ported among several Ada 83 compilers, platforms, and operating systems; therefore, many implementation dependencies had already been removed.
Of course, "Your mileage may vary." Nonetheless, the JAMES experience is encouraging.
-- Lt. Gen. Albert Edmonds, Director, D.I.S.A.
Representatives of the Ada community were eager to offer their input to the AJPO in two days packed with information and activity at the Second Ada Dual-Use Workshop, hosted by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).
The workshop was held February 6-8, 1995, in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.
Participants remembered the First Ada Dual-Use Workshop held in October of 1993, when their suggestions helped DISA formulate a detailed Ada Dual-Use Program Plan to encourage the use of Ada in the commercial sectors as well as in government. The 1995 workshop offered a valuable opportunity to review recent developments and provide even more direction for the Ada program.
The first day was devoted to reports on activities intended to meet the needs expressed by the first workshop. On the second day, participants took center stage - when they were asked to give their opinions and assessments. The workshop broke up into four tracks, with participants giving their statements to panels from government, academia, Ada vendors, and Ada users in industry.
In the afternoon, attendees heard a series of detailed presentations on the particular aspects and projects of the five major thrusts of the Dual-Use Program: increase marketing; establish partnerships (with the academic, government, and industrial sectors); provide support and incentives; reinforce commitment; and maintain current AJPO activities. In addressing those five thrusts, eight speakers covered more than 20 efforts _ ranging from new publications for managers, to early Ada-95 development projects, to products available to the community at large.
Underneath all the details, two closely related themes could be heard: 1) there are opportunities available for the Ada community; and 2) your help is essential to Ada's success.
In some sense, Ada has always been a "dual-use" effort. It may have been a government venture, but it could never have gotten off the ground or survived without the efforts of people in the academic and commercial sectors. It has always been a cooperative venture.
The Workshop itself was evidence that DISA wanted ideas and suggestions, a need which Mr. Reifer noted explicitly in his remarks.
Sifting through those recom-mendations is a major task, and the AJPO is still at work distilling them down to specific achievable options by track and by topic.
Especially encouraging to the AJPO was the number of people who commented that the suggestions they had in mind were already underway. Carrying on and expanding the current work, however, will take just that - work.
The opportunities, however, are considerable. With the publication of the Ada 95 standard, Ada is now the only internationally standardized object-oriented language available. A window of opportunity has opened for Ada, and the Dual-Use Workshop is just one step in taking advantage of the opportunities.
Just as the workshop sought the input of entire Ada community, the marketplace also offers opportunities for the entire community - whether government, academic, or commercial, whether vendors, developers, or end users.
The workshop is over, but the action is only beginning.
[What will be happening as a result of the Second Dual-Use Workshop? What will the AJPO be doing to implement the results? Look for a progress report in a future issue of the AdaIC News.]
Together, these nine vendors currently offer over 60% of the 839 currently validated Ada 83 compilers. Several companies have already provided press releases for and demonstrations of their compilers for Ada 95.
Over half of the vendors plan to make versions of their Ada 95 compilers available for beta testing.
VENDOR AND POINT OF CONTACT VERSIONS FOR BETA-TESTING? Intermetrics, Inc. Uncertain 733 Concord Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 Bill Zimmerman Phone: 617/661-1840 E-mail: billz@inmet.com OC Systems Yes 9900 Lee Highway, Suite 270 Fairfax, VA 22030 Oliver E. Cole Phone: 703/359-8160 E-mail: info@ocsystems.com Rational Software Corporation Yes 1600 NW Compton Drive Suite 357 Aloha, OR 97006 Sam Quiring Phone: 503/690-1116, ext. 6732 E-mail: shq@rational.com R.R. Software, Inc. Yes P.O. Box 1512 Madison, WI 53701 Ian Goldberg Phone: 608/251-3133 E-mail: Rbrukardt@bix.com Silicon Graphics Yes 2011 North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043 Dave McAllister Phone: 415/390-3238 E-mail: davemc@sgi.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. Yes Sun Pro, Inc. 2550 Garcia Avenue MS: UMPK03-205 Mountain View, CA 94043-1100 Carole Amos Phone: 415/688-9424, 415/968-6396 E-mail: carole.amos@eng.sun.com Tartan, Inc. No 300 Oxford Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15146 Wayne Lieberman Phone: 412/856-3600 E-mail: lieberman@tartan.com Thomson Software Products Uncertain 10251 Vista Sorrento Parkway Suite 300 San Diego, CA 02121 Karen Johnson Phone: 619/457-2700 E-mail: kjohnson@thomsoft.com Unisys Corporation No 506 Highway 85 North Niceville, FL 32578 Joseph Kovach Phone: 904/678-4217In addition, the AdaIC has word that several more Ada-compiler vendors will enter the marketplace in May. Compiler vendors: please let us know if we should add you to the list!
One example of the effort is Screen Machine, from Object Interface Systems (OIS). Screen Machine is a development environment for designing, prototyping, coding, testing, and maintaining user interfaces for Ada applications, and includes automatic generation of Ada source code.
In use with one of the DoD's Early Adopter projects, OIS ported Screen Machine to work with the GNAT Ada 95 compiler. The company is now working on the code generator so that the Ada code it produces will include Ada 95's new object-oriented features. A version for the public will be available after final testing.
Hundreds of engineers and managers have already taken classes and seminars on Ada 95. Course offerings have provided instruction to meet a wide range of needs - including basic and advanced Ada 95 programming, Ada 95 development issues, and the transitioning from Ada 83 to Ada 95.
The table at left lists companies that have already presented courses or have completed course development and publicly announced availability. The list includes both regularly scheduled courses and courses that are available on request; with some, individuals can sign up for classes at the trainer's site; with most, the trainers will take the course to the workplace.
Additionally, many companies have Ada 95 courses in development or are prepared to develop courses to meet client needs.
For a complete list of available opportunities, check out the AdaIC's "Classes and Seminars" flyer (E52); it has information on courses for both Ada 83 and Ada 95, and it can be ordered from the AdaIC or downloaded from the AdaIC host computer sw-eng.falls-church.va.us) on the Internet.
Vendors: Please let us know if your company should be added to the list!
Ada training opportunities currently being presented or immediately available upon request:
ABS (S/W) Absolute Software Introduction to Ada 95 Programming Company, Inc. Advanced Ada 95 Programming 4593 Orchid Drive Ada 95 for Ada 83 Programmers Los Angeles, CA 90043-3230 Real-Time Design and Programming Edward Colbert, President Phone: 213/293-0783 Fax: 213/293-6720 AdaWorks Ada 95: An Introduction and Workshop 2555 Park Boulevard, Suite 27 Ada 83 and Ada 95 - Transition Package Palo Alto, CA 94303 Ada 95 for Information Systems Richard Riehle Ada 95 for Real-Time/Embedded Systems Software Engineering Phone: 415/328-1815 Fax: 415/328-1112 adaworks@netcom.com Brosgol Consulting Programming in Ada 95 and Training Information Systems Programming in Ada 95 79 Tobey Road Programming in Ada 95: An In-depth Course Belmont, MA 02178 Dr. Benjamin M. Brosgol Phone: 617/489-4027 Fax: 617/489-4009 brosgol@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us CACI Understanding Ada 95 1600 North Beauregard Street Alexandria, VA 22311-1794 Brad Balfour Phone: 703/824-4505, 703/931-7323 Fax: 703/931-6530 EVB Software Engineering, Inc. Ada 95 Development Issues 5320 Spectrum Drive Frederick, MD 217015320 Jessica Dancy Phone: 301/695-6960, 800/877-1815 Fax: 301/695-7734 Fastrak Training, Inc. Upgrading to Ada 95 Quarry Park Place, Suite 300 9175 Guilford Road Columbia, MD 21046-1844 Dave Anderson Phone: 800/488-2321, 301/924-0050 Fax: 301/924-3049 Learning Tree International Ada Programming and Software Engineering: 1805 Library Street Hands-on Introduction Reston, VA 22090 Dr. Alan B. Salisbury Phone: 703/709-9119 Fax: 703/471-4732 Telos Introduction to Ada 95 Telos Consulting Services Fundamental Ada 95 Suite 203 Advanced Ada 95 5526 North Academy Boulevard Colorado Springs, CO 80918 Gentry Gardner Phone: 800/TELOS-OK, 719/260-1333 Fax: 719/260-0022 Thomson Software Products An Introduction to the Ada Language and Culture 67 South Bedford Street Real-Time Programming in Ada Burlington, MA 01803 Programming in Ada 95 Annemarie Rollins Information Systems Programming in Ada 95 Phone: 617/270-0030 Programming in Ada 95: An In-Depth Course Fax: 617/270-6882 Ada 95 for COBOL Programmers York Software Ada for Real-Time Systems Design Engineering, Ltd. University of York Heslington Y01 5DD York-UK Ronald Pierce Phone: +44 1904 433741 Fax: +44 1904 433744
Lovelace explains the basics of the Ada programming language. It assumes that you have had some exposure to some other algorithmic programming language (such as Pascal, C, C++, or FORTRAN). Lovelace teaches the latest version of Ada, Ada 95 (Ada 9X); it notes differences where they occur with Ada 83.
To use Lovelace, start your WWW viewer and "open" the following URL: http://www.dwheeler.com/lovelace/lovelace.htm Lovelace was developed by David A. Wheeler on a volunteer basis. Comments & suggestions are welcome, as are volunteers who would like to expand it.
[David A. Wheeler; 703/845-6662; e-mail: wheeler@ida.org.]
The developer is seeking "domain experts" interested in co-authoring future members of a family of courses.
[Bard S. Crawford, Stage Harbor Software, 9 Patriots Drive, Lexington, MA 02173; e-mail: bscrawford@aol.com]
Of particular interest is the development of curricula that focus on the effective use of Ada in traditional computer-science, business, engineering, information-management, and related curricula - as well as programs that emphasize the use of features of Ada 95 to encourage better software engineering and software reuse.
The program will be comparable to previous efforts supported by the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) in which educators have been awarded contracts for developing courseware. (Courseware is currently available over the Internet. See p. 7 for information on accessing the AdaIC Internet host.)
It is expected that a project's results will be integrated into the institution's academic program and taught within the period of the award or in the immediately following academic term.
Among new elements involved in evaluation of proposals, will be a course's ability to accelerate commercial use of Ada. Also, 20% of the funds in the program will be set aside for participation from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). As in the past, proposals will be accepted only from U.S. degree-granting institutions.
A detailed Proposer Information Pamphlet is available. The official notice will be published in a Broad Area Announcement (BAA) in the government's Commerce Business Daily (CBD).
A copy of the information pamphlet will be available for downloading from the AdaIC's Internet host. (Contact the AdaIC for details.)
With general availability set for the first quarter of next year, Academic AdaMagic will be a version of Intermetrics, Inc.'s full Ada 95 compiler and development environment. It will be packaged with an introductory computer-science textbook for Ada 95, Ada Problem Solving & Program Design, by Michael Feldman and E.B. Koffman.
AdaMagic will be offered on CD-ROM for PCs ('386, '486, or Pentium) running Windows and PowerPCs running Macintosh system.
Development was sponsored in part by the Ada Joint Program Office, and the academic version will be for educational use only. However, Intermetrics will also distribute a Professional version on the same platforms.
[Intermetrics, Inc., 733 Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138; 617/661- 1840]
The company reported that it would be extending its suite of software- engineering tools. Ada 95 support will be added incrementally as part of a series of upgrades to the Rational product line. Full support for the Ada 95 standard is expected by the end of the year. "Ada 95 fits well with Rational's extensive experience in object-oriented technology, real-time embedded systems, and iterative development," Mr. Rudisin said. "Rational is committed to providing full Ada 95 support across our entire product line."
In addition, Rational will continue to support Ada 83 as long as customers require it. The company will also offer an extensive set of tools to help Ada 83 customers make the transition to the new Ada 95 standard.
[Rational Software Corporation, 2800 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95051-0951; 408/496-3600 or 800-RAT-1212, fax: 408/496-3636; e-mail: product_info@rational.com]
[Thomson Software Products, Karen Johnson, 10251 Vista Sorrento Parkway - Suite 300, San Diego, CA 92121; 619/457-2700, fax: 619/452-2117]
The project was initiated by Prof. Alfred Strohmeier from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and is funded by the Swiss EST programme. A first prototype should be available in November 1995.
They are now in the detailed design stage, and planning to deal with:
pub/users/do_while/ada_in_action
[Do-While Jones; e-mail: do_while@owens.ridgecrest.ca.us]
[AdaIC, P.O. Box 1866, Falls Church, VA 22041; 1-800-Ada-IC11 (232- 4211); e-mail: adainfo@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us.]
According to the company, the programs "reached new levels in depth and complexity possible only through the ... language capabilities" of Ada. Paintball is a multi-player, multi-tasking simulation written in MP/Ada for both military and commercial part task applications. Created entirely in Ada tasking, Paintball "marked a new level of integration between real-time interaction and virtual simulation". Interfacing with Silicon Graphics' IRIS Performer database, Paintball demonstrates previously unseen capabilities for the visual-simulation market. Fireflight is a mission-planning scenario that uses roughly 65% of the Paintball code. By mapping raw satellite data in real-time, Fireflight enables the user to "fight" a forest fire by flying over a simulation of Yellowstone National Park.
Both games work with the Silicon Graphics Onyx RealityEngine2 graphics supercomputer using multiple processors, with a range of 200 to 1,000 tasks driving the real-time graphics. "By pushing the limits of the Ada environment," the company said it had "demonstrated that tasking is a powerful construct that no other language offers. Likewise, having ported Paintball to Ada 95, Silicon Graphics has proven the power of the object-oriented extensions of this language."
April 24-27, 1995 COMDEX/Spring '95* Georgia World Congress Center Atlanta, Georgia POC : Julie Tisch The Interface Group 300 First Avenue Needham, MA 02194 Tel: 617/449-6600 April 24-28, 1995 17th International Conference on Software Engineering Seattle, Washington POC : David Norman Dept of Computer Science & Engineering Siege Hall 114 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 Tel: 908/582-7550 E-mail: dep@research.att.com June 6-9, 1995 ASEET Symposium Ada 95 Courseware and Tools: Educating Software Engineers for the 21st Century Morgantown, West Virginia POC for local information: Prof. Francis Van Scoy West Virginia University Tel: 304/293-3607 x518 E-mail: vanscoy@cs.wvu.edu POC for general information: Capt David Cook USAF Academy Tel: 719/472-3131 E-mail dcook@kirk.usafa.af.mil June 26-30, 1995 Washington Ada Symposium (WAdaS) McLean Hilton, Tyson's Corner, VA POC: Danieli & O'Keefe Associates, Inc. Chiswick Park Sudbury, MA 01766 Tel: 800/833-7751 Fax: 508/443-4715 August 15-17, 1995 Object World - San Francisco* Moscone Convention Center San Francisco, California POC: Kim Martin IDG World Expo Corporation 111 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 Tel: 508/ 820-8921 Fax: 508/872-8237 October 2-6, 1995 Ada in Europe 1995 Frankfurt, Germany POC: Rosey Plett or Claire Gulley Eurospace, 16 bis avenue Bosquet 75007 Paris, France Tel: +33 1 45 55 83 53 Fax: +33 1 45 51 99 23 October 9-12, 1995 Ada UK Conference Kensington, London, UK POC : Helen Byard Ada Language UK Ltd. P.O. Box 322 Y01 3GY York-UK Tel: +44 1904 412740 Fax: +44 1904 426702 November 5-10, 1995 TRI-Ada '95* Anaheim, California POC: Danieli & O'Keefe Associates, Inc. Chiswick Park Sudbury, MA 01766 Tel: 800/833-7751 Fax: 508/443-4715 *The AdaIC will have an exhibit. We sometimes have free passes to conference exhibit areas where the AdaIC will have an exhibit. Feel free to call and ask for available passes.Report of a product, service, or event is for information purposes only and does not constitute endorsement by the Ada Information Clearinghouse.