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From: Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com>
Subject: Re: Questions
Date: 1999/11/11
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Date: 1999-11-11T00:00:00+00:00
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Nobat wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Please forgive my ignorance. I am new in ADA and I have three questions:
> 
> I would like to know if ADA95
> 
> 1) has some STL-like facilities? (are they ISO standard?)

The ISO standard includes some standard libraries, but none that
directly match STL.  However, there are libraries available that
address much of the same problems as STL including the "Booch components"
and various others.  Some of these are commercially available; most
are open source.  See:

    http://www.acm.org/sigada/

and look under "components."  You might also want to check out
other links there.

There is also a new group which had its kick-off meeting at the
recent SIGAda '99 conference in LA with the explicit purpose of
creating a standard Ada Component Library.  Presumably they
will use some of the existing component libraries as inspiration
and/or starting points.

> 2) has Design by Contract approach (like Eiffel) (or can it be easily
> emulated)?

Ada has a strong "contract" model embodied in package specifications
and generic specifications.  For package specifications,
these include possibly constrained subtypes
for the parameters and the result of each operation.  For
generic specifications, they include a number of constrained
parameterization mechanisms.

The built in kinds of subtype constraints are range constraints for scalars,
index constraints for arrays, and discriminant constraints for records.
A pragma "Assert" is available for imposing other kinds of arbitrary
constraints.

> 3) will there be a new ADA standard in future? (is there an active team of
> experts who are working to add new features to the actual standard?)

Yes, the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG) meets 2 to 3 times a year to review
language issues, both clarifications on the existing standard,
and proposed amendments to the standard.  The ARG is part of the ISO
Working Group 9 (WG9) which is responsible for the development and
evolution of the Ada standard.

> I checked AdaPower FAQs, Adahome website and deja news for older
> discussions...(I found partial answers to my questions, but they are not
> clear)
> 
> I appreciate if you point me to appropriate references...
> (if my questions are in wrong forum please ignore them)
> 
> Nobat
> 
> PS: I have no intention to start any language war, my motivation is only to
> know more about the ADA95 approach.

-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions  (www.averstar.com/tools)
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)   Burlington, MA  USA