Team Ada: Infrequently-posted Frequently Asked Questions

Team Ada: Infrequently-posted Frequently Asked Questions

[David Weller]

*** Tri-Ada News***
	On Monday, Team Ada buttons will be available for all members
	attending Tri-Ada (this is a service provided by Ralph
	Crafts, and I think he's asking for a $0.50 donation to help
	cover the cost of making each button).  



For all intents and purposes, this message will serve as the Team Ada
FAQ.  If you feel a question should be added, please reply to
dweller@neosoft.com.
(Credits up front: This discussion format is somewhat inspired by,
and some pieces stolen from, Christian Scarborough, who maintains 
the Team OS/2 FAQ)

Updated goodies have a * in front of them.  This update is dated 
Septamber 2, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
What is Team Ada about?
Why was Team Ada created?
*What would Team Ada do?
What is the DOD's or the AJPO's relationship with Team Ada?
How do I join Team Ada?
Won't Team Ada compete with other Ada "promoters" like SIGAda or the ASA?
What is Team Ada's relationship to ACM's SIGAda?
*Where can I find material to help me as a Team Ada member?
*Where can I find additional Ada info?
*Who maintains this FAQ?

(*) New or modified information
============================================
--What is Team Ada about?

Team Ada is a highly informal organisation dedicated to telling the
world about the advantages of the Ada programming language.
Faced with a large amount of ignorance and misinformation about Ada, 
Teamers respond by demonstrating it to others, and educating them 
about its strengths and weaknesses.  Teamers are all volunteers with 
a genuine enthusiasm for Ada that translates itself into a wish to 
spread that enthusiasm to others.

--Why was Team Ada created?

Success of a language can never depend on mandates.  Successful
languages have almost always grown from a grass-roots movement of
some form, the most prominent example being C.  Many of us know, from
years of use, that Ada is a good, reliable language that has often
been unfairly maligned.  The goal of Team Ada is to form a loose
coalition of Ada enthusuasts who wish to promote Ada at the
grass-roots level.  It is _very_ important to understand that it is
not the purpose of the group to attack other languages.  Quite the
contrary, Team Ada members should maintain the sensitivity that this
is a multi-lingual world, and thus should avoid situations that call
for the denigration of other languages (such attacks are rarely
fruitful anyway). While comparing the benefits of Ada by 
nature requires demonstrating the difficulty of similar solutions 
in other languages, it is important that Team members acknowledge 
and respect the multilingual diversity of the software development 
world.  Teamers should have the attitude of, "We know you have 
a choice of languages, this is why we recommend Ada..."

*--What would Team Ada do?

Anything that promotes Ada to other people.  Examples include, but are not
limited to:

 o Showing Ada compilers and tools to friends and workmates.

 o Participating in electronic conferences discussing Ada.

 o Helping exhibitors at computer shows to set up Ada demonstrations, and
answering Ada questions.

 o Promoting Ada at user groups, possibly starting an Ada user group.

 o Running Ada BBS systems, carrying Ada files. (Or at least promoting
the location of Ada resources like the PAL)

 o Developing applications and tools that proudly boast usage of Ada
	(Maybe we can come up with an "Ada Inside!" logo :-)

Not to mention anything else that springs to mind, often on the spur of the
moment.  Above all, Teamers do what they do because it is FUN. (OK,
that's probably stretching it a _bit_, but you're not likely to be a
Teamer unless you REALLY like the language).

--What is the DOD's or the AJPO's relationship with Team Ada?

Neither the DOD or the AJPO would have control or authority over 
the activities of Team Ada.  Team Ada would be focused on
promoting Ada to individual developers (generally) that are under no
mandate to use the language.  

--How do I join Team Ada?

Joining Team Ada is very simple.  There is no formal membership
application process.  All that is necessary is to do something that
promotes Ada to others, no matter how large or small, and you are entitled
to call yourself a Team Ada member.  Once you have done this, you may wish
to place the text "Team Ada" in any electronic messages you send, and you
may wish to have your name placed on the register, but neither of these steps 
are essential to becoming a Team Ada member, just a willingness 
to promote Ada to others.

(I'd like to thank ACM SIGAda, and in particular Brad Balfour, for
taking the time and effort of establishing the Team Ada mailing list)
1. To subscribe to the list:

  Send a message to:
        mailserv@acm.org
  with a null subject and the body containing the following lines
        SUBSCRIBE team-ada [mail address]
        END
  if the optional mail address is *not* included, then the address the message 
was sent from will be added to the list. You may include a different address 
to sign someone else up or to sign up one of your other accounts.

2. To send a message to everyone on the list, send it to:
         team-ada@acm.org
and a copy of the message will be sent to everyone currently on the list.

3. To unsubscribe to the list, send a message to:
        mailserv@acm.org
  with a null subject and the body containing the following lines
        UNSUBSCRIBE team-ada [mail address]
        END
  if the optional mail address is *not* included, then the address the message 
was sent from will be removed to the list. You may include a different address 
to sign remove an account that you no longer use from a different account.

4.  To get help on additional commands available from the mail
server: 

  Send a message to:
        mailserv@acm.org
  with a null subject and the body containing the following lines
	HELP

--Won't Team Ada compete with other Ada "promoters" like SIGAda or the
ASA?

Not at all.  First, Team Ada provides a way for somebody to be an
"acknowledged" promoter of Ada without being a member of SIGAda.  It
should be apparent that one does not have to be a SIGAda member to be
a Teamer (and vice versa :-).  Second, Team Ada members should be
working hand in hand with the ASA and SIGAda to promote Ada.  If the
concept takes off, many enterprising vendors will realize this as a
mechanism to increase their market share (more developers using Ada
privately will be interested in using Ada at work).   Third, Team Ada
members have a greater chance of reaching smaller educational
institutions, like community colleges and high schools, where vendors
typically can't find the manpower to reach.

--What is Team Ada's relationship to ACM's SIGAda?

SIGAda endorses Team Ada as a viable concept to promoting the usage 
of Ada.  There is no monetary support provided to Team Ada, since 
Team Ada is, and always will be, an un-organized organization
:-), but SIGAda maintains the Team Ada mailing list (see "How do I
join Team Ada" above).

--Where can I find material to help me as a Team Ada member?

A special "Team Ada" directory has been set up in the Public Ada
Library (PAL) at wuarchive.wustl.edu (languages/ada/team_ada). 

This FAQ can also be found (in HTML format) on the Ada homepage
server, which is http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ , and (in ASCII) in      
the team_ada/faq directory in the PAL. 

The June 94 edition of the Walnut Creek Ada CDROM includes the      
team_ada directory in the PAL and the Team Ada FAQ as of June 8, 94. 

*--Where can I find additional Ada info?

The GNU Ada compiler (GNAT) can be found at cs.nyu.edu, under
/pub/gnat.  It is a robust compiler, avialable on a variety of
platforms and OSs, including OS/2, MS-DOS, Solaris, Linux, SunOS, and
many others.

Free Ada goodies, including "help" materials from "Team Ada" (see
below) are available from wuarchive.wustl.edu, under /languages/ada.
You can also find this same material at any other wuarchive mirror
site, including ftp.cdrom.com.

If you have a CD-ROM, you might want to consider ordering the Walnut 
Creek Ada CDROM, which contains a mirror of the Public Ada Library.
For more information, call 1-510-674-0783 or e-mail to info@cdrom.com.

You also might want to poke around the userdocs/alt_srcs directory in 
the PAL. The alt_srcs directory contains pointers to CDROMs, other 
online services, companies and their products, etc.  

The Ada 9X Reference Manual, the Ada 9X Rationale, and several other
interesting Ada-related documents can be found at ajpo.sei.cmu.edu.

If you're running Mosaic, Cello, or any other WWW browser, you might
want to poke on over to http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ (don't forget the
final '/' ).  There, you'll find a wonderful assortment of goodies,
mostly courtesy of Magnus Kempe (those Swiss never fail to impress
me! :-), including a hypertext version of the Ada Reference Manual.
If you have WWW, you have no excuse for not exploring this electronic
playground!

Finally, if all else fails, post a request on comp.lang.ada, there's
hundreds of friendly, helpful people there.  If you can't post to
Usenet News, drop a note to dweller@neosoft.com, and he'll try to
handle it for you.


*-- Who maintains this FAQ?
David Weller is the "official" maintainer of this FAQ.  He can be 
reached at dweller@neosoft.com or you can leave a message for him at
1-713-334-5498.

-- 
Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2)        ||This is not your
   	      Ada -- Very Cool.  Doesn't Suck.               ||  father's Ada 
For all sorts of interesting Ada tidbits, run the command:   ||________________
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
   ObNitPick: Spelling Ada as ADA is like spelling C++ as CPLUSPLUS. :-)