Dateline: 12/7/93
AIR FORCE TO CONVERT 16 MILLION LINES OF COBOL-74 TO ADA
Under its Base Level System Modernization project, the Air Force plans to covert 16 million lines of Cobol-74 code running mostly on proprietary Unisys 2200 series mainframes to Ada programs running on open systems.
The first phase of the conversion effort, which includes three pilot projects that test implementations of Posix, Ada, X Widows, SQL, and object-oriented software engineering techniques, is now being done by Harris Corp.
When Phase-one is completed next summer, Harris will hand over the results to a Phase-two contractor.
The Air Force has released a draft Request for Information (RFI) for a phase-two vendor. The USAF seeks a vendor that is classified at level 3 of the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model and has a standard, documented, and integrated process for developing, maintaining, and managing software.
Source: Endoso, Joyce, "AF Buy Means Good-bye to Cobol," Government Computer News, Dec 6, 1993, pp. 46-47.
ADA USED FOR MAJOR EUROPEAN COMMERCIAL SYSTEMS
Why Ada was the software language chosen, and how it was used at four French companies is discussed in the November 1993 issue of Ada Strategies.
Delta Technologies used Ada for its manufacturing process
supervisor, OSCAR II, that enables the control and management of
every type of manufacturing process.
SLIGOS also used Ada to develop a manufacturing supervision
product that supervises production units in industries such as
chemistry, glass production, and metals treatments.
Strategies has used Ada for two products, CADWIN and
HERAGRAPH. CADWIN integrates advanced techniques for modeling
wireframe and surface objects (NURBS). HERAGRAPH is a complete
graphics workshop for applications development.
A SOFIE product, Multisem 440, developed entirely in Ada,
implements analytical techniques that define and control the
procedures used for the manufacturing of microelectronic
components.
Crafts, Ralph, Ada Strategies, Vol. 7, No. 11, November 1993, pp. 9-15; 304/725-6542
ADA DUAL-USE COMMITTEE HEARS REPORTS FROM WORKSHOP
The DoD's Ada Dual-Use Committee met on November 8, 1993, to review the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the Ada Dual-Use Workshop held in October.
The committee meeting, which was chaired by the Honorable Emmett Paige, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (ASD/C3I), consisted of several senior-level executives and flag-officer representatives from within the Department of Defense.
The Ada Dual-Use Committee members included LTG Alonzo E. Short (DISA), Lt Gen Albert J. Edmonds (J6), LTG Peter A. Kind (USA), Lt Gen Carl O'Berry (USAF), Mr. Llyod Mosemann (SAF/AQK), RADM John G. Hekman (USN/NISMC), Brig Gen Bruce J. Bohn (JIEO), Mr. Ronald Elliott (HQ/USMC), Ms. Cynthia Kendall (DASD(IM)), and Dr. Howard Frank (ARPA).
Presentations were made to the Committee members by the Chairs of each of the four workshop panels: Dr. Charles McKay (academia); Dr. Kurt Fischer (government); Dr. Terry Straeter (industry); and Mr. Bill Carlson (vendor). A summarization of recommendations and an action plan were then presented by Mr. Jerry Russomano and Mr. Donald Reifer on behalf of DISA's Joint Interoperability and Engineering Organization, Center for Information Management (DISA/JIEO/CIM).
Action Items
Upon conclusion of the meeting, Mr. Paige strongly endorsed the Department of Defense's commitment to Ada.
DISA will proceed to implement the following action items:
For Further Information
Proceeding of the DoD-sponsored Ada Dual-Use Workshop will be distributed during December 1993. Information on obtaining copies will be available from the Ada Information Clearinghouse (1-800-AdaIC-11).
An Ada Dual-Use Initiative Workshop is being planned for the fall of 1994. This Workshop will discuss accomplishments during FY94, and detail plans for the coming year.
ADA 9X REPORT TO THE PUBLIC
November 1993
by
Christine M. Anderson, Ada 9X Project Manager
Ada 9X is out for American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Standardization Organization (ISO) voting. The balloting, conducted in parallel, involves two phases. Phase I requires a three-month balloting period for the Committee Draft (CD). Comments received will be carefully reviewed, and any necessary changes will be made. Responses will be sent to all commenters. Even if no responses are received, the second phase of balloting is required.
Phase II requires a six-month balloting period for the revised CD, called the Draft International Standard (DIS). If a "substantial consensus" exists, the DIS is approved by ISO and ANSI. I am expecting approval by November 1994.
Positive ballots from Phase I are already pouring in. Upon receipt of the first ANSI ballot, which was accompanied by a very nice letter, I felt like a shopkeeper who had just earned her first dollar. (In fact, the letter is framed and hanging in my office.)
The first ballot was from Weirton Steel, and with their permission I'll share an excerpt from the letter. It says in part:
Our perspective here at Weirton Steel is probably
unique within the 9X Project group. We are a majority
employee-owned integrated steel manufacturer with no
direct financial or commercial ties to the original
"parent" of Ada, the U.S. military. Due to a variety
of factors, a large portion of the automation and
Man-Machine Interface software in our hot-strip
reducing mill was developed and written in Ada.
Weirton Steel has only one hot-strip reducing mill and
all of our products must undergo this process to be
converted from slab to coil form...the very lifeblood
of this company and its nearly 6,500 employee-owners is
intertwined with the Ada language. I wanted to take a
moment at this point of the 9X Project life cycle, to
congratulate you and the entire staff, both full-time
and volunteer, on a job well done!
Needless to say, it makes all of us associated with the Ada 9X Project feel very good.
Electronic copies of the draft Ada 9X reference manual and rationale may be obtained via FTP from the Ada Joint Program Office's Internet host (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu -- they're in the ada9x/rm9x subdirectory). A limited number of hard copies of the manual have been shipped to the Ada 9X mailing list. After Phase II, the approved standard and rationale will be available in hardcopy from the Government Printing Office.
2. Ada 9X Textbooks/Training Here Now
The first Ada 9X textbook was published in September. There are also several more coming out within the next few months. In addition, several companies specializing in training have introduced Ada 9X courses.
The AdaIC newsletter is planning to list these and other Ada 9X related offerings in a future issue.
3. Ada 9X in Academia
Under the Advanced Research Project Agency's (ARPA's) Broad Area Announcement (BAA 93-26), two more awards have been made to universities to accelerate the use of Ada in academia. (If you're an educator interested in taking part in an effort like this, you may want to check out the August issue of the AdaIC newsletter. See "Educators Take Note: New Call for Curriculum Proposals".)
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) received a contract to upgrade their GENIE software-development environment to Ada 9X, and to teach a course using the environment. This project will result in a novice-level programming environment for Ada 9X called the Ada Genie, and a novel course in introductory programming using Ada Genie.
The novelty of this introductory course will lie in its emphasis on making software-engineering principles, and the Ada 9X language, accessible to novice programmers. The tools will use graphical, direct-manipulation interfaces to help students visualize the relationships that mediate data abstraction, encapsulation, object-oriented programming, and separation of specification from implementation. Scott Vorthmann and Phil Miller are the CMU principal investigators.
The other award went to George Washington University (GWU). This project will produce educational materials that use Ada tasks and protected types for introducing concurrency and parallelism into data structures, operating-systems, and real-time lab courses. It will develop examples of concurrent versions of the familiar sequential applications studied in data structures (matrices, sorts, queues, etc.), with emphasis on simulation.
Operating-systems materials will focus on the implementation of concurrent programming, using the GNU Ada Translator (GNAT) runtime as a basis. For the real-time course, a real-time control testbed will be developed, using a model railroad as the system to be controlled. Mike Feldman is the GWU principal investigator.
In the interest of promoting the use of Ada at other academic institutions, an electronic archive is being established to house the material resulting from these awards. To date, 29 awards have been made. The archive will reside in the Asset Source for Software Engineering Technology (ASSET). Frances Van Scoy from West Virginia University will be the librarian in charge of ensuring all material is properly indexed and described in abstract form for easy access. I expect the archive to be on-line by April 1994. Other repositories will be encouraged to include the material as well, to facilitate widespread use of Ada in academia.
The ARPA curriculum-development program is expected to continue for the next several years with new BAAs issued periodically.
4. GNU Ada 9X Compiler Update
GNAT, the ever-popular Free Software Foundation's GNU Ada 9X compilation system, is nearing completion. It was demonstrated at TRI-Ada '93 in Seattle to enthusiastic audiences who were impressed with its performance.
In the interest of showing just how retargetable GNAT is, the New York University (NYU) team developed a cross compiler to a Motorola 68332 in order to control a robot that is being developed by the GNU team's neighbors in the AI laboratory at NYU. The retargeting took only two days!
5. Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC) Test Suite
Ada vendors are being encouraged to participate in the ACVC test suite development process.
The ACVC measures conformance to the standard in order to enhance code portability between different platforms and different compiler systems. The test suite schedule is still on track, with ACVC 2.0 expected to be available in March 1995.
If any vendor would like to be involved in this process and has not already been invited by the Ada 9X Project Office, please contact me as soon as possible.
Christine M. Anderson, Ada 9X Project Manager
Air Force Phillips Laboratory/VTES
3550 Aberdeen Avenue, S.E., Kirtland AFB, NM 87117-5776
Tel: 505/846-0817, -0461; Fax: 505/846-2290
E-mail: anderson@plk.af.mil