AN Ada FOR THE REST OF US
Buzzing around the show floor at the recent TRI-Ada ‘95 Conference was talk of an impressive Ada article headlining the November issue of Embedded Systems Programming. “An Ada For The Rest of Us,” by Richard Riehle(AdaWorks) dispels the pessimism targeted at Ada 83 and looks to the virtues of Ada 95.
Riehle discusses the factors, both good and bad, that may have contributed to the general attitude toward Ada 83. He offers ways to keep Ada 95 from being a replay of the Ada 83 experience. Recognition of Ada’s strongest qualities, ISO/ ANSI standardization, object-oriented programming features and reliability, will make Ada more attractive to a larger, more commercial audience. A larger pool of users can mean stronger commitment from Ada compiler vendors. Thus resulting in better compilers, better prices and more fully integrated development environments and tools.
Also discussed are Ada’s object-oriented programming features and the five annexes of importance to embedded systems development: Interfacing to Other Languages, Systems Programming, Real-Time Systems, Numerics, and Safety and Security.
SOURCE:
"An Ada For The Rest of Us," Richard Riehle. Embedded
Systems Programming. November 1995(Vol.8, No.11); Miller
Freeman Inc., 600 Harrison St., San Francisco, CA 94107;
415/905-2200.
SUBSTANTIAL BENEFITS IN RE-ENGINEERING WITH Ada
Ralph Crafts discusses the ease with which organizations can re-engineer an existing system using sound software engineering and proven software standards such as the Ada programming language in his article, "Ada to the Rescue: Modernizing a Legacy System." Crafts uses a project conducted by the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) to discuss the substantial benefits that can be realized by using Ada.
INEL's re-engineering effort for the Electronic Combat System Integration (ECSI) produced an implementation of IMOM (Improved Many on Many), written in Ada, with a maintainability index more than double the earlier FORTRAN and C versions. Much of the improved maintainability was a result of the Ada version being considerably less complex than former versions. Crafts discusses the applications in detail.
Crafts concludes that the improvements in efficiency, accuracy and productivity are substantial and the lessons learned have superb commercial applicability.
SOURCE:
"Ada to the Rescue: Modernizing a Legacy System," Ralph
Crafts. Defense & Security Electronics. November, 1995 (Vol.
27, No. 11); Argus Inc., 6151 Powers Ferry Road, N.W.,
Atlanta, GA 30339-2941; 404/955-2500.
Ada PROGRAMMING SKILLS IN HIGH DEMAND
A Federal Computer Week supplement, Federal Integrator, reported that Washington, D.C. area contractors are in recruitment mode and seeking employees experienced in object-oriented, client/server technologies. N. Gus Siekierka, vice president of human resources with Computer Sciences Corp.'s Systems Group, and a number of other integration executives pointed out that people with Ada programming skills are in high demand. Some executives attributed this situation not only to the military's use of Ada but to the government's growing interest in software reuse, the article stated.
SOURCE:
"Federal Integrators Are Hiring," John Moore. Federal
Integrator ( a supplement of Federal Computer Week). October
23, 1995 (Vol.9, No.31); FCW Group Inc., 3110 Fairview Park
Drive, Falls Church, VA 22042-4599; 703/876-5100.
Ada PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Recently released for the first time is AdaCAPS (Ada Computer-Aided Programming System), an interactive development environment (IDE) that works with GNAT (GNU-NYU Ada 95 Translator) under MS-DOS. AdaCAPS includes: a newly-developed editor, a set of simple DOS command-line commands, and a fast hypertext Ada 95 Reference Manual.
The AdaCAPS suite is available from ftp.gwu.edu in the file:
pub/ada/adacaps/adacaps.zip.
It is also available from NYU and its mirrors, in the file:
pub/gnat/contrib/gwu/adacaps.zip.
SOURCE:
Prof. Michael B. Feldman
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202/994-5919
E-mail: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu
SOURCE:
TLD Systems Ltd.
3625 Del Amo Blvd., Ste.100
Torrance, CA 90503
310/542-5433 (Sales Department)
AdaIC. Call 1-800/AdaIC-11 or e-mail:
adainfo@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us