Re: language design lessons learned from Ada

[William Clodius <wclodius@lanl.gov>]

Arthur Evans Jr wrote:
> <snip>
> Perhaps I didn't adequately explain my desires.  What I want is thoughts
> of those who were involved in the design process, now that it's over and
> there's been time to think about how it all came out.  What is good
> about the design, and what could have been done better?  What have we
> learned that other language designers should be aware of?
> <snip>

If your interest is in the design process for Ada, as opposed to the
design that resulted from the process, or the design process for other
languages, I can only think of two references:

Bill Whitacker's paper in the "History Of Programming Languages II,"
Thomas Bergin and Richard Gibson, Eds., ACM Press, ISBN: 0-201-89502-1,
and the discussion of the Ada standardization process in the special
issue of programming language standardization of Computer Standards and
Interfaces Vol 16 Nos 5/6, September 1994.

I am not familiar with any other Ada specific references not available
at http://www.adahome.com/. A starting point for general references is 

Gary T. Leavens. Introduction to the Literature On Programming Language
Design. Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University, TR
#93-01b, January 1993, revised January 1994 and February 1996.

http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens/main.html

You might also try a search at various bibliographic databases

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/language/bibliographies.html

-- 

William B. Clodius		Phone: (505)-665-9370
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