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From: eberard@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Edward Berard)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Ada Programming Contest Problems Sought
Message-ID: <339@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 88 10:57:59 GMT
Keywords: "Ada Can"
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

I am sponsoring an Ada programming contest (cash prizes totaling
US$7500). The winning entries in this contest will be placed in the
public domain. (The title of the contest is "Ada Can.")

The first part of this contest requires that I solicit "interesting,
unsolvable" Ada problems. The closing date for submission of such
problems is very near (April 22, 1988), and I am sure that I could use
some more potential problems.

The characteristics of "interesting, unsolvable" Ada programming
problems are:

   1. They must not appear to be readily solvable using "simple"
      features found in the LRM (ANSI/MIL STD 1815A (1983)). For
      example, assigning a fixed priority to an Ada task can be easily
      accomplished using pragma Priority. Assigning a dynamic priority
      to a task, on the other hand, does not appear to have a simple
      solution.

   2. There must exist few (if any) known satisfactory solutions to
      the problem which are legal under the syntax and semantics
      described in the LRM. If any solutions exist, they must be
      cited, and reasons given as to why they are unsatisfactory.

   3. They must not be problems which can be solved solely by:
      changing things outside of the language (e.g., hardware and
      run-time environments), improved implementations of validated
      compilers, or special interpretations of known language
      ambiguities. An example of an unacceptable problem would be
      "having a task rendezvous complete in less than 200
      microseconds."

   4. The problem must be interesting. I am looking for problems whose
      solutions will have a significant impact on Ada applications in
      general.

I am looking for at least 10 (ten) such problems. Please send your
ideas for problems directly to me to avoid "net clutter." I will post
both the contest problems and more contest information at a later
date.

				-- Ed Berard
				   EVB Software Engineering, Inc.
				   5320 Spectrum Drive
				   Frederick, Maryland 21701
				   Phone: (301) 695-6960
				   eberard@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu