Re: What's ADA?

[bowmanc@ns1.sw-eng.falls-church.va.us (Carl Bowman)]

In article <31888e94.20333789@news.saipan.com> wrote:
>Can anyone please explain to me what is ADA? Thanks.
>....

ADA stands for the American Dental Association, or the Americans with
Disabilities Act. :)

(The following information may be of information only to Ada novices,
but I invite anyone with more experience or information to correct any
innacuracies.)

Ada (notice only the initial letter is capitalized) is a programming
language designed with emphasis on maintainability and portability.
The name comes from Countess Ada Lovelace, considered to be the first
programmer.

The U.S. Department of Defense sponsored a study of the programming
languages in use in the Services and Agencies and discovered that
hundreds of diverse languages were in use in hundreds of programs.
The possibility existed that proprietary programming languages were
being invented to assure contractors' continuing participation in a
project.  This practice made maintainance of long-lived projects
difficult, since new programmers often had to undergo extensive and
expensive training on obscure, and often obsolete, languages.  This
resulted in huge expenses to the government, and ultimately, the
taxpayer.  The study concluded that existing languages could not meet
the DoD's future requirements.  A competition was formed to create a
language meeting the DoD's requirements and the resulting language is
Ada.  Most DoD programming was (and _STILL_) is mandated to use Ada.
Ada 95, the latest revision of the Ada programming language, has been
gaining acceptance in the commercial and international market,
especially in systems where zero defect tolerance is critical.

The Ada Information Clearinghouse is an organization dedicated to
providing information about the Ada programming language.  (Sorry, we
can't help the many callers we get for dental or disability
information. :)) An exaustive collection of information on Ada is
available on our Software Engineering host.  Rather than make this
post even longer by giving detailed access directions, I'll simply
give you the url (http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us) and the AdaIC
phone number ((703) 681-2466).  Please visit our site, or give me a
call if you need more information.

Carl Bowman
Ada Information Clearinghouse

.