URL - Ada-Europe

60 Pages·2008·0.7 MB·English

ADA
Volume 24
USER Number 1
March 2003
JOURNAL

Contents
Page
Editorial Policy for Ada User Journal 2
Editorial 3
News 4
Conference Calendar 42
Forthcoming Events 50
Articles
Javier Miranda
“A Guided Tour to the GNAT Runtime” 55
Alan Burns
“Increasing the Real-Time Expressive Power of Ada 95” 60
Ada-Europe 2002 Sponsors 64
Ada-Europe Associate Members (National Ada Organizations) Inside Back Cover

Ada User Journal Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003
2
Editorial Policy for Ada User Journal
Publication Original Papers Commentaries
Ada User Journal – The Journal for the Manuscripts should be submitted in We publish commentaries on Ada and
international Ada Community – is accordance with the submission software engineering topics. These
published by Ada-Europe. It appears guidelines (below). may represent the views either of
four times a year, on the last days of individuals or of organisations. Such
All original technical contributions are
March, June, September and articles can be of any length –
submitted to refereeing by at least two
December. Copy date is the first of the inclusion is at the discretion of the
people. Names of referees will be kept
month of publication. Editor.
confidential, but their comments will
Opinions expressed within the Ada
be relayed to the authors at the
Aims
User Journal do not necessarily
discretion of the Editor.
Ada User Journal aims to inform represent the views of the Editor, Ada-
readers of developments in the Ada The first named author will receive a Europe or its directors.
programming language and its use, complimentary copy of the issue of the
general Ada-related software Journal in which their paper appears. Announcements and Reports
engineering issues and Ada-related
We are happy to publicise and report
By submitting a manuscript, authors
activities in Europe and other parts of
on events that may be of interest to our
grant Ada-Europe an unlimited license
the world. The language of the journal
readers.
to publish (and, if appropriate,
is English.
republish) it, if and when the article is
Reviews
Although the title of the Journal refers accepted for publication. We do not
to the Ada language, any related topics require that authors assign copyright to Inclusion of any review in the Journal
are welcome. In particular papers in the Journal. is at the discretion of the Editor.
any of the areas related to reliable A reviewer will be selected by the
Unless the authors state explicitly
software technologies. Editor to review any book or other
otherwise, submission of an article is
publication sent to us. We are also
taken to imply that it represents
The Journal publishes the following
prepared to print reviews submitted
original, unpublished work, not under
types of material:
from elsewhere at the discretion of the
consideration for publication else-
Editor.
• Refereed original articles on where.
technical matters concerning Ada
Submission Guidelines
and related topics. News and Product Announcements
All material for publication should be
Ada User Journal is one of the ways in
• News and miscellany of interest to sent to the Editor, preferably in
which people find out what is going on
the Ada community. electronic format. The Editor will only
in the Ada community. Since not all of
accept typed manuscripts by prior
• Reprints of articles published our readers have access to resources
arrangement.
elsewhere that deserve a wider such as the World Wide Web and
Prospective authors are encouraged to
audience. Usenet, or have enough time to search
contact the Editor by email to
through the information that can be
determine the best format for
• Commentaries on matters relating found in those resources, we reprint or
submission. Contact details can be
to Ada and software engineering. report on items that may be of interest
found near the front of each edition.
to them.
• Announcements and reports of Example papers conforming to
conferences and workshops. formatting requirements as well as
Reprinted Articles
some word processor templates are
• Reviews of publications in the While original material is our first available from the editor. There is no
field of software engineering. priority, we are willing to reprint (with limitation on the length of papers,
the permission of the copyright holder)
though a paper longer than 10,000
• Announcements regarding material previously submitted
words would be regarded as
standards concerning Ada. elsewhere if it is appropriate to give it
exceptional.
a wider audience. This includes papers

Further details on our approach to
published in North America that are

these are given below.
not easily available in Europe.
We have a reciprocal approach in
granting permission for other
publications to reprint papers originally
published in Ada User Journal.
Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003 Ada User Journal
3
Editorial
Volume 24 of the Ada User Journal opens with an issue that features two highlights: our continued and close look into the on-
going Ada language revision process and an even bigger News section, which was afforded, for the expected gratification of
the readership, by temporary changes in the Journal advertising policy.
After the introductory presentation of the language revision process that Pascal Leroy, the rapporteur of the ARG, the group
that runs the revision process, offered to AUJ 23-4, we now turn our attention to one of major areas of activity in the revision
process: the enhancement of the already powerful real-time programming model of the language, the intent of which is to
further strengthen the leading role that Ada plays in the real-time and high-integrity application domains. Alan Burns, who
represents the Ada real-time community in the ARG, gives us an overview of the current highlights of the real-time oriented
proposals for language enhancements.
Finally, in this issue we have the pleasure of hosting a paper by Javier Miranda, which, after so often recurring the News
section of the Journal, briefly walks us through his enormously informative work on the description of the internals of the
GNAT runtime.
Let me close by reassuring the readers that we continue our effort to bring the Journal back to its calendar schedule, while
being all the more eager to contributions from the Ada community at large.

Tullio Vardanega
Padova
March 2003
Email: [email protected]
Ada User Journal Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003
4
News
Dirk Craeynest (ed)
Offis nv/sa and K.U.Leuven. Email [email protected]
[...] the ARA has decided to open up verification of software, rather than
membership from its original tool and relying on the inherently more risk-prone
Contents
compiler vendors to anyone interested in and expensive use of testing as the
page supporting Ada's future. [...] principal verification activity.
Ada-related Organizations 4
New: Join the Ada Resource Association: SPARK is a programming language that
Ada-related Events 4
facilitates Correctness-by-Construction.
Ada and Education 7 An introduction to the ARA's work for the
Ada-related Resources 9 Ada community and benefits of ARA Its most important property is that it has a
Ada-related Tools 10 membership. totally unambiguous semantics. This
Ada-related Products 17 enables static analysis of the language to
http://www.adaic.org/ARA/join.html [...]
Ada and Linux 24 be both precise (i.e. the results really
Ada and Microsoft 24 Ann Brandon, Editorial Webmaster mean something and there's a very low
References to Publications 25 "false alarm" rate) and efficient so the tool
Ada Inside 27 support is actually useful during
Ada-related Events
Ada in Context 34 development rather than just being used
retrospectively.
Ada-related [The announcements reported below are a SPARK is an annotated subset of Ada95,
selection of the many Ada-related events so the language inherits all of the support
Organizations organized by local groups. If you are for commercial compilers, tools and
organizing such an event, feel free to training available from the wider Ada
Tucker Taft at Helm of ARA inform us as soon as possible. If you community. The "annotations" extend the
and SofCheck attended one please consider writing a subset's support for design-by-
small report for the Journal. -- dc] contract(tm), allowing packages and
subprograms to specify their intended
From: Editorial Webmaster Dec 6 - Public Technical
behaviour precisely at various levels of
<[email protected]>
Briefing on SPARK rigour and detail.
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:56:04 -0500
Subject: [AdaIC] S. Tucker Taft at Helm of SPARK has over 10 years of industrial
From: [email protected] (Rod Chapman)
ARA and SofCheck use, mainly in the European Aerospace
Date: 27 Nov 2002 05:30:16 -0800
To: [email protected] and Rail industries, but remains less well
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Public technical
known in the USA, although SPARK is
S. Tucker Taft has rejoined the ARA as briefing on SPARK, Houston
actually recommended by NASA's own
president of SofCheck. Tucker is a Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
guidance for safety-critical software. This
founder and president of both SofCheck,
As a "warm up" event for ACM SIGAda briefing will examine some of the most
Inc., and the ARA. The ARA is seeing an
2002, Praxis Critical Systems will be notable SPARK projects, including the
old friend turn into the newest member of
presenting a public technical briefing on Lockheed C130J, and how SPARK is
Ada software tool and compiler vendors.
SPARK on Friday 6th December. This effective in meeting standards such as
Tucker is an old friend of the Ada event in aimed at engineers and managers DO-178B. Finally, we will consider some
community, too, as we need not tell most involved in the design and procurement of of the barriers (both actual and mythical)
of you: From 1990-95, he led the Ada9X high-integrity software, and especially that may have hindered the adoption of
design team and succeeded in making those involved in the aviation and space SPARK in other projects. [...]
Ada95 the first ISO standardized object- industries centred around NASA JSC.
oriented programming language. In his Dec 8-12 - ACM SIGAda
Title: SPARK - A state-of-the-practice
twenty years with AverCom (AverStar, 2002 Conference
approach to High-Integrity Software.
previously Intermetrics), Tucker became
Where: Houston Holiday Inn / NASA,
President of AverCom Corporation (a
1300 NASA Road 1, Houston. From: [email protected] (John
Titan Company).
Woodruff)
When: Friday 6th December 2002, 09:30
For more information, please see the Date: 18 Dec 2002 10:41:57 -0800
- 12:00.
AdaIC site at Subject: Re: SIGAda summary
http://www.adaic.org/news/sofcheck.html RSVP: To [email protected] [...] Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Editorial Webmaster, Other contacts: rod.chapman@praxis- [See also same topic in AUJ 23-4 (Dec
[email protected] cs.co.uk www.sparkada.com 2002), pp.189-190. -- dc]
Abstract: Building truly high-integrity > Is there anyone who was at the SIGAda
Join the Ada Resource
software requires a qualitatively different conference who would care to post a
Association
approach - simply "being more careful" is summary of anything interesting that
not good enough. In the UK and Europe, was discussed?
From: Editorial Webmaster Praxis has pioneered an approach known
Here are some of the items that interested
<[email protected]> as "Correctness by Construction" that has
me:
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 21:42:43 -0500 proven to be both a technical and
Subject: [AdaIC] Updates from the AdaIC commercial success in this domain. C-by- SIGAda Chair Currie Colket reports that
News C is characterized by an emphasis on a there are 560 members in the SIGAda
To: [email protected] rigorous approach, the appropriate use of interest group. Attendance at the
formal notations, and the static conference was just under 100.
Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003 Ada User Journal
Ada-related Events 5
Proceedings of the conference will be Here are my thoughts on SIGAda 2002, and safety-critical systems) in the run up
issued to SIGAda members in CD form. held in Houston last week. Please note to the Ada0Y revision process.
these are purely my personal thoughts and
Keynote speaker Robert Dewar described Michael McEvilley did a good talk about
impressions. They only reflect a subset of
the license that Ada Core Technology the Common Criteria, security stuff, and
the papers that caught my particular
(ACT) uses to release public versions of why the Ada community has something to
attention. There were a couple of sessions
their compiler product. The license allows offer in the ComSec world (i.e. we know
and many tutorials that I missed
applications to use their runtime but never how to build really reliable software!)
altogether. I leave it to others to fill in the
obligates a developer to release any
blanks. Papers: Some good stuff. Some stuff I
product. ACT (the company) is steadily
missed. Usual stuff from the vendors.
growing and makes a growing profit. Overall: Generally, a good SIGAda.
Two highlights for me were:
Much credit to all the SIGAda organising
Bob Carey of Lawrence Livermore
committee and program committee for Richard Conn talked about the
National Lab described the on going work
such a well-run event. Turn-out was OK - development processes used on the
on the controls software to operate the
about the same as the previous years at Lockheed Martin C130J software
National Ignition Facility laser. NIF is a
JHU and Minneapolis I think. It addition systems. Their development process is
very large high-power laser that will focus
to all the "usual suspects", there were a now very mature (they have a CMM
1.8 MegaJoules of energy on a target in a
few notable new faces such as NASA, Level 4) combining all sorts of best
25 nanosecond pulse to study nuclear
TRW, Northropp Grumman, and practices. The metrics presented by
fusion. The controls, written in Ada and
Lawrence Livermore Labs. Richard suggest that the software
Java, now comprise some 600 KSLOCs;
development process is now one of the
initial integration testing is presently in Tutorials: I attended Michael McEvilley's
least error-prone activities in the aircraft's
progress. (I am a co-author of the report tutorial on the Common Criteria. Good
development.
and a long-term coworker on NIF). stuff - the CC is an important standard
that the Ada community needs to be VDot Santhanam from Boeing Wichita
Rick Conn described the C-130J aircraft
aware of. The ComSec world also appears presented their "ZBra" Ada subset and
software. Lockheed has invested $1.2
to be a market where Ada could make a compiler. This is an Ada subset, compiler
billion in the software product: about 5
useful contribution. [ComSec = and virtual-machine that is designed to be
MSLOC's of Ada in about 50 CSCI's.
Communications Security. -- dc] I also qualifiable as a development tool to the
Their goal is to enhance customizability
gave a full-day SPARK tutorial. Very standards required by DO-178B Level A.
of the aircraft for a variety of customers.
tiring! This is a big breakthrough - a level A
Charles McKay, dean of the school of qualified compiler has never been
Keynotes: A particularly strong set of
Science & Engineering of the University attempted before to the best of my
key-note speakers this year.
of Houston spoke in favor of yet-more- knowledge, so this is a significant
rigorous definitions of Ada and the The keynote from Robert Carey of announcement.
systems engineering process in advance Livermore Labs was amazing – they are
Next Year: San Diego! Excellent - let's
of mission and safety critical applications. building a thing called the "National
hope the weather is better - well... couldn't
He favors resuming work on a Ignition Facility" (NIF), which is
be much worse... :-)
programming support environment (PSE) basically one of the world's biggest lasers.
to capture all the development processes This is one of the last great "big physics" That's pretty much it... like I said, I hope
for safety-critical systems. experiments left in the world. It will be someone else can fill in for the bits I
used to generate small nuclear fusion missed...
Martin Carlisle (USAF Academy) told
about his revisions to GNAT to experiments and so on. Check out From: [email protected]
incorporate the Microsoft .NET paradigm www.llnl.gov/nif. Some metrics: peak (Vinzent Hoefler)
(ability to distribute portable multi- power output 500 Terawatts; pulse energy Date: 20 Dec 2002 13:45:42 -0800
language binary modules). 1.8 Megajoules; shot time 3 - 20 ns; laser Subject: Re: A personal view of SIGAda
amplicification gain 3 million billion (!!!) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Tucker Taft outlined early plans for the
next Ada language standard revision The control system is a large distributed Well, it was my first SIGAda and the
(Ada-0Y). The schedule calls for network of machines – mostly off-the- reason I was there, were simply just
proposals to be complete early in 2003, shelf PCs, networking kit and embedded private interests... but I'll try to comment a
the proposed text of the revision to be processors with some custom-built little bit.
hardware. They expect it will be about a
completed in spring 2005 and voting to be [Removed many confirmations of points
million lines of Ada and Java when
complete at the end of 2005. in posting above. -- dc]
finished. Most of the GUIs are Java, with
Topics for probable revision: interface the main control system being Ada. Oh, > Michael McEvilley did a good talk
inheritance (ala Java); solve cyclic and when the shot fires, the whole thing is about the Common Criteria, security
dependencies among types; pragma to supposed to be synchronised to <20 stuff, and why the Ada community has
declare intention to override (or avoid _pico_seconds! Now that's what I call something to offer in the ComSec
overriding) primitive operation in child hard real-time! world (i.e. we know how to build really
package; standardize pragma Assert reliable software!)
Robert Dewar spoke about Open Source,
(leading to design-by-contact); possible
Free Software, development processes Yes, I have the feeling that especially
syntax for prefix notation on object
(i.e. cathedral vs bazaar) and its effect on more and more security people get
instances, like C++ Object.Op (params)
software reliability and security. Robert interested into Ada (if they aren't already,
notation; several issues for safety and
made the important point that "Free" or of course). Not just from this keynote,
security enhancements.
"Open Source" licensing and "Open" also by my own experience.
From: [email protected] (Rod development processes have absolutely
> Papers: [...] Two highlights for me
Chapman) nothing to do with one another! Lively
were:
Date: 19 Dec 2002 03:56:49 -0800 and topical as usual.
Subject: A personal view of SIGAda Well, the paper about the Generic Genetic
The keynote from Charles McKay was
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Algorithm was interesting, too. More in
very good. Basically, he spoke
terms of teaching Software Engineering at
SIGAda 2002 - A brief report passionately and strongly in favour of
University and experience of the students
remembering Ada's "roots" (i.e. mission
Ada User Journal Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003
6 Ada-related Events
with Ada than in the usual terms of the both cases, useful artefacts will be numbers could represent entities other
mission- and safety critical area. provided on the API web page, when than quantity."
available. Besides compilable APIs, there
All in all, I enjoyed the SIGAda2002 With the aid of Ada's descendant, the Earl
will also be other valuable artifacts such
conference. Lots of interesting people. of Lytton, the directors have done a fresh
as examples, tutorials, known problems,
[...] and comprehensive reading of Lovelace
lessons learned, etc.
and Babbage material at Oxford's
From: Ted Dennison
A major topic of discussion at the Bodleian Library, the Woking History
<[email protected]>
workshop was the management of both Center, the British Library and in private
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 00:33:29 GMT
registered public and registered private collections. The film was shot at some of
Subject: Re: A personal view of SIGAda
APIs. There are many issues associated the most dazzlingly beautiful locations in
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
with each. It is proposed that a SIGAda England.
[On security people getting/being API Working Group be responsible for
[...] Event URL: For directions and more
interested in Ada: -- dc] this activity.
information go to
I've done ComSec Ada work before. I The workshop was extremely well
know the LMD/KP project was entirely received. The presentation on Thursday http://www.computerhistory.org/events/lectures/a
Ada. I believe that's a piece of equipment night will provide a summary of the da_01212003/
that nearly every ComSec user is aware workshop. Plans are already underway to [...]
of. [LMD/KP = Local Management implement this management plan. We are From: [email protected]
Device/Key Processor. -- dc] initially planning to use the Common Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 06:49:39 GMT
Gateway Interface (CGI) as a test case for Subject: Ada movie, was Computer History
Jan 9 - ACM DC SIGAda
the procedures to manage Ada APIs. Museum, UPCOMING EVENTS
Meeting on Evolving Ada There will be other bindings of potential Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Bindings and Ada APIs near term interest as well. Besides the
It was a rather good movie about Ada
CGI Bindings, other interfaces to which
Augusta Lovelace. There were around
we have had recent presentations include:
From: Currie Colket <[email protected]> 100 people pretty much filling the
Windows Graphical User Interfaces and
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:43:00 -0500 auditorium. One of the first questions was
Hierarchical Data Format (HDF). This
Organization: The MITRE Corporation about the Ada language, and the response
presentation could be valuable to all users
Subject: ACM DC SIGAda Chapter Meeting from the movie producer, unfortunately,
of Ada bindings. Those interested in
this Thursday in Washington DC was that he was told at U of Maryland
getting involved are especially welcome.
To: [email protected] that they don't currently teach Ada. So a
For those coming to the DC area this [...] Please visit the DC SIGAda Web site little later I pointed out that since
Thursday: our Next Meeting is scheduled at http://www.acm.org/sigada/locals/dc/ Babbage's original impetus for the
for Thursday, 9 January 2003 at 7:30 P.M. for additional information. [...] Difference Engine was the bugginess of
Jeff Castellow, Chair, DC SIGAda math tables, it was fitting that applications
Mr. Clyde Roby, Institute for Defense
requiring high reliability are actively
Analyses, will be speaking on "Evolving
Jan 21 - U.S. Premiere of using the Ada language.
Ada Bindings and Ada APIs" at the DC
SIGAda Venue in McLean, Virginia. [...] New Documentary Film "To Feb 6 - Ada-Belgium Event
Dream Tomorrow"
Abstract: on Testing Tools for
A workshop was held at SIGAda 2002 to Embedded Applications
From: [email protected] (Eugene Miya)
address the management of Ada bindings
Date: 13 Jan 2003 22:50:49 -0800
and Application Program Interfaces Organization: Computer History Museum From: [email protected] (Dirk
(APIs). The purpose of that workshop was Subject: Computer History Museum: Craeynest)
to identify a mechanism and begin to UPCOMING EVENTS Date: 6 Feb 2003 22:33:30 +0100
define a plan for the management of APIs Newsgroups: [...],comp.lang.ada,[...] Organization: Ada-Belgium, c/o Dept. of
for Ada. ISO/WG9 has requested that Computer Science, K.U.Leuven
SIGAda and Ada-Europe propose such a Tuesday, January 21, 2003 Subject: Ada-Belgium - PolySpace
mechanism for managing Ada bindings U.S. Premiere of the new documentary presentation - Tue 2003-02-25 20:00
that are not covered via formal standards. film "To Dream Tomorrow" directed by Newsgroups:
Then ISO/WG9 can recommend these Jo Francis and John Fuegi. The story of comp.lang.ada,fr.comp.lang.ada,be.com
bindings as *defacto* standards, thus Ada Byron Lovelace and her work with p.programming,nl.comp.programmeren
providing a process to register, and thus Charles Babbage on the quest to build the
Ada-Belgium is pleased to announce a
manage, bindings available to the Ada first computer.
technical presentation by Marc Lalo of
community without the formalism
[...] Stanford University. FREE to the PolySpace Technologies, France.
required by ISO. This workshop was well
public. NO reservations required.
received at SIGAda 2002. There were "Next generation testing tools for
many excellent suggestions made to Abstract: In 1843, Ada Byron Lovelace embedded applications: Apply abstract
improve a draft plan to manage Ada APIs. moved beyond her illustrious interpretation to automatically detect run-
predecessors Leibnitz and Pascal, and time errors at compilation time"
Registered APIs are either Public or
even her brilliant contemporary, Charles
Private. Public APIs are those where a Tuesday, February 25, 2003, 20:00, at the
Babbage, to describe universal computing
dedicated team assumes the responsibility U.L.B., Department of Computer Science,
much as we understand it today. World
for their maintenance and evolution. [...], B-1050 Brussels (after the Ada-
authority on early computing devices,
Changes are controlled via a concensus- Belgium 2003 General Assembly at
Doron Swade of the London Science
based process. 19:00).
Museum states in "To Dream Tomorrow":
Private APIs are those developed and "Ada saw something that Babbage in http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-
maintained by a third party. With some sense failed to see. In Babbage's belgium/events/local.html
permission from the developer, these world his engines were bound by number. [...]
APIs are kept on the API web page as a What Ada Lovelace saw was that
convenience to the user community. In
Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003 Ada User Journal
Ada and Education 7
Abstract [...] From: Daniel Feneuille <feneuile@univ-
aix.fr>
Real time software applications may be Clyde Roby, SIGAda Secretary
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:35:51 +0100
incorrect due to three main reasons: run-
Organization: IUT Aix
time errors (latent faults in the code); non
Ada and Education Subject: Re: [ada-france] Manuels d'auto-
respect of the temporal requirements; non
formation en Ada
respect of the functional requirements.
Course and Training cc: [email protected]
Our talk will focus on the first solution to
automatically detect run-time errors at Material in French To learn Ada (except real time) you can
consult and download the courses I teach
compilation time (arithmetic overflows,
arithmetic exceptions (division by zero, [Extracts translated from French. at the IUT at Aix-En-Provence:
square root of a negative number), out-of- Previously included pointers are not http://libre.act-europe.fr/french_courses
bounds array access, access conflicts to repeated here; see also the same topic in
[...] With regard to French books the most
shared data, read access to a non- AUJ 23-4 (Dec 2002), p.191, and AUJ
complete are:
initialized variable, illegal dereferenced 23-3 (Sep 2002), p.128. -- dc]
pointer). From: Bruno Kuper <bkuper@club- 1) "Programmation Séquentielle avec Ada
95" of P. Breguet and L. Zaffalon at the
In real time software applications, the internet.fr>
Presses Polytechniques et Universitaires
following strategies are used to deal with Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 08:20:44 +0100
Romandes which does not treat "real
run-time errors: fault-tolerant systems; Subject: Re: Qqn connait un site qui donne
time", but it is supplemented by
fault detection, based on intensive testing des tutoriaux pour Ada?
and code review. Unfortunately, due to Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada 2) "Programmation Concurrente et Temps
the increase of software size and There are several sites where one finds Réels avec Ada 95" same authors and
complexity, the cost of testing and code Ada tutorials. [...] If you type Ada in a editor,
review dramatically increases. PolySpace search engine you will find tens in French 3) "Programmer en Ada 95" de John
Technologies has developed the first of them. Especially in Switzerland, [...] Barnes at Addison Wesley.
solution based on abstract interpretation Thanks to our Swiss friends to do so
With regard to CDRoms, I distribute one
techniques for an earliest and automatic much for our language.
to my students containing texts and free
detection of run-time errors in Ada and C
From: GuillaumeM <autre> software, but you can check out the one
applications.
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 20:03:21 +0100 proposed by Stéphane Rivière: "Aide",
We will report results obtained in the Subject: Re: je commence a apprendre Ada [email protected]. [See also "Ada
embedded systems industry and more Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada Starter CD-ROM for MS-Windows"
specifically by our customers involved in further in this news section. -- dc]
Here are some links.
the development of safety and mission
critical Ada software: aerospace, railway http://boole.imag.fr/PLACARD/ECOLE1/lp1- Ada as a First Language - an
transport and defense. ricm/ Anecdote
More information: PolySpace Technologies - ["Langages et Programmation" page at the
http://www.polyspace.com/ Institut d'Informatique et Mathematiques From: Sébastien Martin
Appliquees de Grenoble, with among <[email protected]>
[...]
others notes for the course Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:47:45 +0100
Jun 16-20 - Ada-Europe "Programmation en langage Ada". -- dc] Subject: Re: nb aléatoire
Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada
2003 Conference http://lithwww.epfl.ch/teaching/cmp/polycop.html
[Extracts translated from French. -- dc]
[Course text for the "Cours de
From: Jean-Pierre Rosen programmation Ada" at the Computer I will simply tell you an anecdote: in my
<[email protected]> Science Theory Laboratory (LITH) of the school (Fiifo), the language used to learn
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 14:52:11 +0100 Ecole Polythechnique Federale de programming in the first year is Ada.
Subject: Ada-Europe program Lausanne (EPFL). -- dc] Most of the students complain about this
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada programming language which "annoys"
From: Jean-Pierre Rosen
The preliminary program, as well as the <[email protected]> them constantly with its constraints. Then
tutorials program, is now available from Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:07:27 +0100 in second year, we learn C (as well as
the conference page at: http://www.ada- Subject: Re: Debutant COBOL, but good...) and its joys.
europe.org/conference2003.html. We Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada Curiously, at the time of our algorithmic
hope that it will convince you that project, almost all students chose to
attending the conference is a MUST! http://www.adalog.fr/adaweb.htm implement it in Ada...
J-P. Rosen, [email protected], [Page in French with an extensive Sébastien Martin, Student Fiifo 2 [Fiifo =
"catalogue of the most important Ada Formation d'Ingénieurs en Informatique
http://www.adalog.fr
resources available on Internet (except de la Faculté d'Orsay, France. -- dc]
Dec 7-11 - ACM SIGAda compilers)". -- dc]
From: Sébastien Martin
2003 Conference From: Thomas De Contes <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 13:02:53 +0100
From: Clyde Roby <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:57:45 +0100 Subject: Re: nb aléatoire
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 13:03:58 -0500 Subject: Re: [ada-france] Manuels d'auto- Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada
Subject: SIGAda and Conferences reminder formation en Ada
My example did not want to show a
To: [email protected] To: liste ada-france <ada-france@ada-
"superiority" of Ada over C [...], but to
france.org>
[...] Don't forget about our upcoming illustrate that the more significant
Ada-related conferences: http://baptiste.malguy.net/contrib/ada/ "constraints" of Ada actually made the
SIGAda 2003, San Diego, California ["Ada 95 Tutorial" in French, as a language simpler and more effective to
USA, 7-11 December 2003. compressed HTML archive. -- dc] use, since it is a language designed from
the start to be used by a human being, and
http://www.acm.org/sigada/conf/sigada2003/ not to be understood efficiently by a
Ada User Journal Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003
8 Ada and Education
machine - and that the students finally and did not want it taught to their Feedback on Ada Distilled
appreciated it for that. [...] beginners.) Online Book
[And from a later message: -- dc] It was interesting to stand in the lab and
watch CS (Ada) and EE (Pascal) From: Richard Riehle
[...] I didn't say that [C] was unusable, I
beginners working side by side. One day, <[email protected]>
simply noticed many students had
about week 6 of term, the CS students Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 18:58:38 -0800
preferred Ada over C for the
(using GNAT and AdaGraph) had nearly Organization: AdaWorks Software
implementation of their algorithm,
all successfully written a program that Engineering
because Ada appeared easier to use.
animated balls bouncing around in a box. Subject: Re: Why is Ada a good choice for
More on Ada as a First The EE students (using Turbo) were an ambitious beginner to programming
nearly all grappling unsuccessfully with a Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Language
trivial text-oriented read-process-output
One reason I wrote Ada Distilled
loop.
From: [email protected] (John (downloadable from adaic.org and
McCabe) From: Bill Findlay adapower.com) was to focus on what the
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 10:04:13 GMT <[email protected]> newbie needed to know to get started with
Subject: Re: Why is Ada a good choice for Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 00:50:34 GMT Ada without plowing through a massive
an ambitious beginner to programming Subject: Re: Why is Ada a good choice for amount of prose and long programs. I
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada an ambitious beginner to programming believe everyone should have a copy of
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Norm Cohen's book if they are serious
> The advantage of starting in Ada is that
about Ada, just as they should have a
you won't acquire bad habits. This is > You've convinced me; but the CS
copy of John Barnes' book to fill in a lot
really important. The disadvantage is students (using GNAT and AdaGraph)
of gaps as well as to see some uniquely
that Ada is difficult. Some people may were enrolled in a formal course ...
conceived examples.
tell you otherwise, they are geniuses So were the EE students. In fact, they
creating software for devices that fly to were enrolled in a programming module The feedback I have received on Ada
the cosmos for a few years now. taught by CS. (I was not teaching either Distilled is that it has made Ada more
immediately accessible to at least some
Bill Findlay responded: group BTW).
experienced programmers than those
> 400 not-especially-endowed-with- But I don't want to make too much of this. more complete and arguably much better
genius CS1 students have learned to Certainly there were other significant books by Cohen and Barnes. Everyone
program using Ada 95 at Glasgow differences between the groups that learns in a different way. We can always
University every year since 1996. accounted for much of the disparity, but use more pedagogical material. I have
I'm quite sure the EE group would have been considering doing a book that
Coming from the bloke who co-wrote one
made better progress with the easier focuses only on Ada for numerics
of the definitive Pascal manuals of the
language (i.e. Ada). That's the irony. [...] applications, one that demonstrates the
late '70s, early '80s, I would suggest this
is quite an endorsement for Ada over > [...] exercises that inject some colour usage of the many kinds of numeric
Pascal. and fun into the process of learning attributes in actual programming
(e.g., the ball/box graphics exercises). examples. Alas, the press of other
For what it's worth, I was taught Pascal at commitments has delayed the creation of
Glasgow University in around 1983 (as If you are using GNAT on a Wintel that work.
part of an Electronics Engineering system, all you need to get going is the
degree). AdaGIDE IDE and the AdaGraph library Ada Accessible for New
package (and some neat ideas 8-).
From: Bill Findlay Students
<[email protected]> From: [email protected] (John
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 21:32:26 GMT McCabe) From: Richard Riehle
Subject: Re: Why is Ada a good choice for Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 10:05:30 GMT <[email protected]>
an ambitious beginner to programming Subject: Re: Why is Ada a good choice for Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 05:51:33 -0800
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada an ambitious beginner to programming Organization: AdaWorks Software
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Engineering
Ada is easier for beginners than Pascal,
because its syntax and semantics are [On the remark that "Ada is easier for Subject: Re: Anybody in US using Ada?
much more consistent. In fact, it's just a beginners than Pascal, because its syntax Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
better language, full stop. The and semantics are much more consistent." [...] I just returned from presenting a two
Hoare/Dijkstra barb about Pascal being an -- dc] week software engineering seminar in
improvement on its successors is I agree with this, but you definitely need Asia. I used Ada to demonstrate my
nonsense. Hoare's list (in "The Emperor's to go for one of the books written programming examples. The students,
Old Clothes") of the supposed advantages especially for teaching Ada *and* none of whom had seen Ada before,
of Pascal can be seen, in retrospect, as a programming together. Norman Cohen's found the examples easy to read,
catalogue of the reasons for Pascal's book, "Ada as a second language", for understand, and ask questions about. If I
demise. example is not designed to do that, yet is had been using C++ for a similar
> For what it's worth, I was taught Pascal (IMO) one of the best Ada books around. audience, one that had never seen C++
at Glasgow University in around 1983 Ada comes across as being such a large before, I suspect I would have had a
(as part of an Electronics Engineering language that, without a good reference classroom full of confused students. Even
degree). guide to what you *need* to know, it my example using an Ada generic
could be very easy for a beginning component was easy to follow for these
It took ten years for EE to switch from programmer to get lost in all the stuff you students, even though English was not
Fortran to Pascal. Fifteen years further on, don't need to know. [...] their native language.
when CS adopted Ada 95, they tried to
Some of them plan to download GNAT
take EE with them, but without success.
and experiment with Ada. Everyone of
AFAIK they are still stuck with Pascal.
them agreed that C++ is so confusing that
(In fairness to EE, they did see through C,
they spend a huge amount of time
correcting errors that they wish had been
Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003 Ada User Journal
Ada-related Resources 9
caught by the compiler. Many had already Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 15:44:56 GMT http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je
rejected C++ in favor of Java, Python, and Subject: Re: differences between Ada83 and
From: Robert A Duff
other languages because they found C++ Ada95
<[email protected]>
so difficult. Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:20:58 GMT
Ada can be made accessible to new > I'm looking for a complete list of Subject: Re: Interesting and historical
students. We simply need to learn how to differences between Ada83 and Ada95 document
present what the students need when they (not only upward compatibility). Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
need it, and to show them simple
You want the Annotated Ada Reference There were four: Red, Green, Blue, and
solutions they can use to work out their
Manual (AARM). It's available at: Yellow. At some point, they narrowed it
own problems.
down to Red and Green. Then just Green,
http://www.ada-auth.org.
From: Richard Riehle which evolved into Ada.
<[email protected]> Each section contains headings:
From: John English <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 18:38:55 -0800 inconsistencies with Ada 83 (cases where
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:12:32 +0000
Organization: AdaWorks Software a legal Ada 83 program has different run-
Organization: University of Brighton
Engineering time semantics in Ada 95);
Subject: Re: Interesting and historical
Subject: Re: Hijacking a Thread incompatibilities with Ada 83 (cases
document
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada where a legal Ada 83 program is illegal in
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Ada 95); extensions to Ada 83 (cases
[...] I was in Wuhan, China for the past
where a legal Ada 95 program was not The preliminary spec was published in
two weeks presenting some seminars at
legal in Ada 83). SIGPLAN Notices in 1979, but it was
Wuhan University. For most of the
already called Ada by then. However, it
students, it was the first time they ever When we designed Ada 95, we were
was reasonably similar to the final form
saw Ada. Amazing how easy it is for pretty careful to document every change,
of the standard by then. Dijkstra's
people who have never seen Ada before and categorize them under the above
comments about Green make me think
to read and understand the key points. headings. We missed a few obscure ones
that Green must have been a very
by accident, but they are almost 100%
ACT alert. Do expect some downloads of different beast indeed from what was
complete.
GNAT from Hubei Province in China. eventually published in 1979, and I'd be
From: [email protected] curious to know more about it. It would
(Lauper Marc) also be nice to see the other proposals --
Ada-related Resources Date: 29 Nov 2002 14:26:00 -0800 IIRC, Red was based on Algol 68, but
Subject: Re: Pragma BUILT_IN that's all I know about it.
CORBA Resources Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada
Ada 200x Resources
[In response to a question about
From: Victor Giddings implementation-dependent pragmas in old
<[email protected]> Ada 83 code: -- dc] From: Randy Brukardt
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 19:12:43 GMT <[email protected]>
The following document seems to refer to
Organization: Objective Interface System Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 13:32:38 -0600
this, it might perhaps help you:
Subject: Re: Distributed programming in Subject: Re: Ada 200x
heterogenous platforms http://archive.adaic.com/pol-hist/history/9x- Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada history/reports/pragma-Nov89.txt > Is there a website for Ada200x?
> Before bumping my head into the [This is an "Ada 9X Project Report"
Not per se. What material there is is on
project, I like to gather as much entitled "A Study of Implementation-
the ARG site (www.ada-auth.org).
information about distributed Dependent Pragmas and Attributes in
programming in heterogenous Ada" from November 1989. -- dc] Randy Brukardt, ARG Editor
platforms. From: Robert A Duff
Interesting Historical
CORBA is another technology that <[email protected]>
explicitly deals with platform Document Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 20:55:06 GMT
heterogeneity, as well as language Subject: Re: Ada 200x
heterogeneity. We have a number of From: John English <[email protected]> Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
getting started links on our web site: Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 12:39:03 +0000 Look at the amendment AI's to see the
Organization: University of Brighton various proposals. In particular, search for
http://www.ois.com/resources/corb-1.asp
Subject: Re: Interesting and historical "!class amendment" and "!status
[With among others in the section document Amendment".
"Objective Interface's Presentations & Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Papers": an explanation how Ada should Ada Forum in German
[A scanned version of Edsger Dijkstra's
be considered for real-time applications in
(in)famous critique of the Green language
"Beyond C++ and Java: Extending the (which evolved into Ada) is available at From: [email protected] (Gautier)
Reach of Ada through CORBA" in the Date: 6 Jan 2003 12:52:44 -0800
May 2001 version of the COTS Journal http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd06xx/E Subject: Ada forum in German
Online, and the presentation "ORBexpress WD660.PDF Newsgroups:
for Ada 95 - CORBA: How IT Works". -- -- dc] comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.misc
dc]
Interesting indeed. Having never seen the There is a new forum in German about the
Victor Giddings, Senior Product original Green proposal, it seems that Ada programming language on:
Engineer, Objective Interface Systems quite a lot got changed before it
http://www.ada95.ch/forum/forum.html
reemerged as Ada. Does anyone have a
Useful Resources for Ada 83
copy of the original Green proposal they
to 95 Porting could put online as well? (Also Red and
the other colour -- was it Yellow?)
From: Robert A Duff
John English, Senior Lecturer, Dept. of
<[email protected]>
Computing, University of Brighton,
Ada User Journal Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003
10 Ada-related Tools
Ada Web Site in Russian Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 14:52:36 -0600 Booch Components
Subject: Re: Anybody in US using Ada?
From: Dmitriy Anisimkov Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Simon Wright
<[email protected]> >[...] let's get a group to organize an "Ada <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:27:56 +0600 Package Distribution". Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 12:26:06 GMT
Subject: An: www.ada-ru.org Subject: Booch Components 20030111
SIGAda is supposedly working on setting
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada To: [email protected]
up such a thing. Hopefully, they'll
http://www.ada-ru.org succeed, because they are the right sort of This release has been uploaded to
Welcome to new site about Ada in organization to do it: independent of the http://www.pushface.org/components/bc/
Russian. vendors; not a standards body (which
and is mirrored at
would take years) yet they have visibility
There is no content in English for now,
and clout to get people to pay attention. http://www.adapower.net/booch/.
because our main goal is to represent Ada
for the Russian programmers. There are [See also "Jan 9 - ACM DC SIGAda Major features since 20020602:
enough Ada sites in English in the world Meeting on Evolving Ada Bindings and Licence changes: The library is now
and http://www.ada-ru.org has links over Ada APIs" earlier in this news section, released under the GNAT-modified GPL.
there. and the web site for the Ada Application My test and demonstration code is
We invite Russian speaking people to Programming Interfaces Working Group released under the GPL. Contributed
intent our site. We appreciate any (APIWG) at code's licences remain unchanged.
comments and new Russian stuff to http://www.acm.org/sigada/locals/dc/ Interface changes
populate this site. -- dc]
Constraints: For Bags, Maps and Sets in
Note, this site is powered by the Ada Web From: Randy Brukardt each form, and in all Bounded forms, the
Server. http://libre.act-europe.fr/aws <[email protected]> basic container is now unconstrained with
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:15:11 -0600 the previous container (Bag etc)
New Ada-France Web Site
Subject: Re: Anybody in US using Ada? implemented as a constrained subtype.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada The intention is that users shouldn't need
From: Lionel Draghi to change existing source.
<[email protected]> > SIGAda is the right forum for
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 22:14:55 +0100 establishing all sorts of things as being Iterators: It used to be possible to create
Subject: L'association Ada-France a un "Conventional Ada" and you're 100% an empty Container, create an Iterator
nouveau site WWW right about its advantages compared to over it, populate the Container, and then
Newsgroups: fr.comp.lang.ada the vendors or standards body. just use the Iterator. If you do that now,
However, I think it could benefit if it the Iterator will typically be "complete"
[Translated from French: -- dc]
had some acceptance & endorsement (ie, Is_Done will return True) until you
The team of Ada-France is happy to by the vendors and standards body so Reset it.
announce the availability of her new that everyone saluted the flag
Concurrency: The slender support for
WWW site. The use of the SPIP concerning the end results. [...]
concurrency (Guarded and Synchronized
publication software allows in particular:
I can't speak for the vendors, of course. forms) has been removed.
- to quickly access the Ada topics in As far as the standards body goes, that's
[See also same topic in AUJ 23-3 (Sep
French (those who do not have time to where the idea originated (inside of
2002), pp.129-130. -- dc]
follow the newsgroups comp.lang.ada and WG9). SIGAda volunteered to try to
fr.comp.lang.ada will appreciate); implement it, because it is out of scope Mats Weber's Ada
for WG9. The hope is that some of the
- to function in collaborative mode: the Component Library
packages pseudo-standardized by SIGAda
readers can also become writers and
could be picked up and added to the
propose articles, which will be validated From: [email protected] (Mats Weber)
standard in the future.
by the editors. Date: 17 Jan 2003 11:56:17 -0800
The search engine integrated into the site I suspect that getting the vendors to do Subject: New location for my Ada
makes it possible to find information anything will be a hard sell. The idea as I component library
easily. The use of key words gives recall it (I wasn't at either the recent Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
SIGAda meeting or the most recent WG9
immediately access the articles with The new web location for my Ada
meeting, so the plan may have changed)
identical subjects. The services offering components is
was to set up a place where "certified
"stages" and employment will be
packages" could be accessed. Such http://mats.weber.org/ada/mw_components.html.
reintroduced soon in a new form.
software would already have been tested Is anybody still using these?
The site is accessible at the usual address on a variety of compilers, so it ought to
right now: http://www.ada-france.org/. work out of the box for you. Java [See also "Mats Weber's Ada
components" in AUJ 20-1 (Apr 1999),
Do not hesitate to send us your remarks at supposedly has something similar.
pp.14-15. -- dc]
the address [email protected] The problem with most of the stuff on the
My PHD thesis has also moved, there are
For the Ada-France organization, net is that it has only been tested with
links to it from my home page:
whatever compiler the author has. And it
Lionel Draghi et Samuel Tardieu.
often doesn't work anywhere else. Our http://mats.weber.org/.
experience with Claw is that you really
From: Jeffrey Creem
Ada-related Tools have to compile and test it on each
<[email protected]>
compiler if it does anything interesting at
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 14:52:22 GMT
all, because some things won't work, and
Ada Components and APIs Subject: Re: New location for my Ada
some compilers have bugs that allow
Working Group illegal code to be compiled, and so on. If component library
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
this stuff works well and is popular, the
From: Randy Brukardt vendors will pick up on it. I still occasionally use them. Mostly bags.
<[email protected]> There are a lot of standard Ada library
Volume 24, Number 1, March 2003 Ada User Journal