Ada NEWS -- Week Ending 16 Dec 1994

Ada NEWS -- Week Ending 16 Dec 1994

[Ada Information Clearinghouse]

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   Ada 9X TRANSITION AND ADOPTION GUIDELINES AVAILABLE
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DATELINE:  December 16, 1994

A companion set of documents to assist programmers and managers in
adopting or transitioning to Ada 9X is now available on the Ada
Joint Program Office's (AJPO) Internet host:

     The "Ada 9X Transition Planning Guide" provides working
     guidelines for transitioning to Ada 9X from either Ada 83 or
     any other language.

     Its companion, the "Ada 9X Adoption Handbook" outlines
     opportunities, issues, risks, and decisions that need to be
     addressed when a project or organization is preparing to adopt
     Ada 9X.

Both documents are available on ajpo.sei.cmu.edu in the
/public/document directory.  The machine may be accessed via
anonymous ftp, Gopher, and WAIS.  For more information on accessing
the AJPO Host, contact the AdaIC.

[Source:  Ada Information Clearinghouse; Phone: 800-232-4211;
Internet e-mail:  adainfo@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu; PO Box 1866, Falls
Church, VA  22204.]


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                OOP IN Ada 94 IS C++ "DONE RIGHT"
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DATELINE:  December 16, 1994

An article entitled, "Ada 94 - The new OOP standard," is featured
in the November/December, 1994 issue of Journal of Object Oriented
Programming.  Written by Richard Riehle, the article positively
touts Ada 94's new features, particularly emphasizing its adoption
of object-oriented programming.  Riehle also discusses Ada 83, its
criticisms, and the impact is has had on the success of Ada.

Riehle notes that though the Ada 83 standard has been criticized
for not being a true OOP language, it has many of the
characteristics required for object-oriented programming.  However,
Ada 83's design goal was reliability and the absence of OOP was a
conscious choice, based on the technology and requirements of the
time.  Riehle says, "One negative consequence of Ada's reliability
goal was a conflict with the democratization of computing in the
1980's, thereby reducing Ada's popularity.  The positive result, in
the non-military software community, is the growing use of Ada for
safety-critical software applications.  If it absolutely,
positively must work correctly, the smart designer chooses Ada."

The article states that Ada 94 retains the best of the original
language design while making it easier to learn and use.  "OOP is
so easy in Ada 94 that Ada programmers will complete the transition
to OOP more easily than C programmers make the leap to OOP with
C++," Riehle says.  A few of Ada 94's other new features are also
positively noted, making the new ISO Ada standard, "worth a look." 
In closing, Riehle commented, "This may be the first OOP language
to be an ISO standard.  In fact, one might say that Ada 94 is C++
done right." 

[Source:  Riehle, Richard.  "Ada 94 - The new OOP standard,"
Journal of Object Oriented Programming.  November/December 1994. 
Vol. 7, No. 7]

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              AUTOMATED DOCUMENTATION SUPPORT FOR 
   RATIONAL ROSE FAMILY OF OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE AVAILABLE 
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DATELINE:  December 16, 1994

Rational Software Corporation announced today that it has
integrated its Rational Rose family of analysis and design tools
with its SoDA documentation tool. As a result, developers can
automatically generate software documentation from their
analysis and design models and from their code.

SoDA automates the production of software documentation and allows
users to produce useful documents with minimal incremental
investment. With SoDA, users can automatically create
class-by-class documentation of their design and code. They can
generate complete documents with place holders for supplemental
information, which can be added using SoDA's built-in publishing
tool.

For more information contact:
Rational Software Corporation
2800 San Tomas Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95051-0951
Tel. (408) 496-3600 or (800) RAT-1212
Fax (408) 496-3636
E-mail product_info@rational.com
     

[Source:  Rational Software Corporation News Release]