Re: GW-Ada/Ed-DOS available free from WUSTL (long)

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Jun15163410@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
>Kudos to Mike Feldman for his efforts with GW-Ada.
Thanks! 
>
>How about taking some of the money being wasted on other DoD Ada efforts,
>and giving the money to Mike so he can go to software engineering and
>object oriented trade shows and pass out diskettes with his GW-Ada system.
>I mean, since the STARS people are too embarassed to publicly display any
>of the beta-meta-Ada-stuff the DoD is giving them money for, while I am sure 
>Mike is quite proud of his efforts, and would be glad to represent Ada
>interests at such trade shows, it seems a much better return on investment
>to give Mike the money.
>
Well, let me provide some more information. First, the core compiler, binder,
and virtual-machine interpreter making up Ada/Ed were done at NYU and
were originally funded by the government; recall that the SETL version of 
Ada/Ed was funded by the Army originally to demonstrate the implementability
of Ada83 (this was pre-83), and that this system received the very first 
validation certificate. The translation to C was done in the mid-80's 
(I don't recall how it was funded), validated in 1987 or so, and sat on 
the shelf for a few years, because NYU felt that it had been overtaken by
events (decent commercial compilers). 

With the recent speed and memory gains in PC's, and the very strong move to
Unix in the universities, and the advent of gcc, NYU was induced to clean up
Ada/Ed and release it with source code, in 1992 under GNU rules.

My contributions have been:

- distribute Ada/Ed DOS disks at SIGCSE 92, with Rich Pattis and
  SIGAda (NOT government) funding;

- supervise development of the environment at GW, first as a few course
  projects and some volunteer work by a few driven students;

- distribute Ada/Ed DOS and Mac diskettes at SIGCSE 93, again with Rich 
  and with SIGAda funding. 

The Mac port was done on volunteer time by Jacques Rouillard in Marseille. 
I helped test it (on my own time), but the port was essentially finished 
by the time Jacques told me about it.

I am currently supervising a two doctoral students and a postdoc to refine
and enhance the Ada/Ed "added value" on DOS and Mac platforms. This work is
now funded in part by a small contract from the US Air Force, under the 
supervision of Chris Anderson of the Ada9X office. Her office has taken over 
supervising the AJPO curriculum-development program, (sometimes called 
the BAA), which was originally supervised by DARPA (now ARPA). Got that?

I certainly appreciate the kudos from Greg, but hasten to point out that
this project is simply typical of the sort of thing that happens in a
university when source code to a system becomes available. It's nice for
students and faculty to get some funding from Uncle Sam to do something
like this, and in fact it would not have been possible without NYU's
original DoD funding. But much of the work was done on a volunteer basis,
as happens in the GNU world all the time.

Happily, Chris Anderson and company have come to understand this phenomenon
very well; the best evidence thereof is the Ada9X office funding GNAT.
Sometimes the government louses things up, but sometimes they get it right.
And universities sometimes get it right, too :-)

Stay tuned on GNAT and surroundings, folks.

Cheers -

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5253 (voice) - 202-994-5296 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
------------------------------------------------------------------------