From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,12f4d07c572005e3,start X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: ff6c8,12f4d07c572005e3,start X-Google-Attributes: gidff6c8,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,12f4d07c572005e3,start X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,12f4d07c572005e3,start X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,12f4d07c572005e3,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: adainfo@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us (AdaIC) Subject: Ada News Brief - 96-05-24.txt [1/1] Date: 1996/05/24 Message-ID: <4o56db$p66@ns1.sw-eng.falls-church.va.us> X-Deja-AN: 156584546 content-type: Text/Plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 organization: Ada Information Clearinghouse mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.sw.components,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.edu Date: 1996-05-24T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Ada News Brief Week Ending: May 24, 1996 ********************************************* AJPO CHIEF CHARLES ENGLE PROFILED IN FCW ********************************************* Federal Computer Week recently featured a profile on Charles Engle, Jr., Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) Chief and leader of the Year 2000 team at Defense Information Systems Agency. As head of the AJPO, Engle's task is to educate people about DoD's Ada policy and to foster the development of Ada technology through cooperative work with DoD organizations, vendors and the university community. The article discusses not only Engle's current role in the Ada community but his past involvement with Ada beginning with his role in developing Ada 83 as a graduate student at Stanford University. Engle stresses the importance of the DoD's Ada policy and notes that however attractive people may find C++, its lack of standardization and technical limitations often make it a poor substitute for Ada. SOURCE: Monroe, John Stein. "Ada point man staves off chaos," Federal Computer Week. May 6, 1996: 58,60. ************************************************************** PROSPECTS LOOK GOOD FOR INCORPORATING Ada 95 WITH JAVA VIRTUAL MACHINE ************************************************************** Peter Coffee discusses the concept of the Java Virtual Machine becoming a target for languages other than Java in his article, "Java Virtual Machine Brews a Revolution." Coffee notes that Ada 95, with both object-orientation and multiple threads, is a clear candidate for this strategy and discusses the open beta test that is being conducted by Intermetrics. The company is testing a technology for mapping Ada 95 to the JVM instruction set. For further information, check http://www.inmet.com/javadir/download/. SOURCE: Coffee, Peter. "Java Virtual Machine Brews a Revolution," PC Week. May 6, 1996: 18. ***************************** JAVA TO TAKE OVER FOR Ada? ***************************** Defending Sun Microsystems' claims that Java is smoother and more efficient than Ada and that Ada will be supplanted by Java, Tucker Taft, chief scientist of Intermetrics, Inc., stated, "Of course they would love to see Java as the next Ada in DoD. It's a lot of hype. Ada has everything Java has, and the binary code is so similar that we are able to hijack all its strengths without losing anything." Further defending Ada's position in the DoD is Chuck Engle, chief of the Ada Joint Program Office, "It's not true that Java will phase out Ada," he said. "Java is Ada 95 schematics with C++ syntax. Ada is safer. It is easier to read and understand." SOURCE: Finnegan, Lisa. "Ada loyalists go head-to-head with Java promoters," Government Computer News. May 13, 1996: 38- 39. ************************************************** DISCOVER Ada 95's STRING HANDLING CAPABILITIES ************************************************** Richard Riehle's Ada column in the May issue of Journal of Object-Oriented Programming discusses "one of the seldom explored issues of the new Ada standard: strings." Riehle discusses an Ada developers need for a consistent, portable, complete definition for string-handling routines that would eliminate the need for recoding simple string algorithms over and over. Riehle states that Ada 95 has remedied this issue by defining a set of packages for both character handling and string handling. It even includes packages for wide characters and wide strings. Riehle continues by offering examples and explanations for Ada 95 string capabilities. SOURCE: Riehle, Richard. "Stringing along with Ada 95, "Journal of Object-Oriented Programming." May 1996: 49-54. ************************************ THOMSON RELEASES OBJECTAda 6.2.1 ************************************ Thomson Software Products recently announced the availability of ObjectAda 6.2.1 on Sun Microsystems' Ultra SPARC high-speed 64-bit architecture. ObjectAda 6.2.1 provides users with the new object-oriented features of Ada 95, coupled with the power of a new high-performance hardware platform. ObjectAda 6.2.1 offers many advanced features to accelerate the development process, including an optimized, object-oriented Ada compiler, software component libraries, and a syntactic and semantic editor to reduce the edit-compile cycle. In addition, an Ada 83-to-Ada 95 compilation switch facilitates the transition to the newly refined Ada language. For more information on ObjectAda 6.2.1, contact Andrea Williams, 619/457-2700, awilliams@thomsoft.com SOURCE: Thomson Software Products press release from Business Wire via Individual Inc. ************************************************ MOCK BALLOT OPEN FOR Ada BINDING TO P1003.1g ************************************************ The P1003.5c working group of the Portable Applications Standards Committee(PASC) of the IEEE Computer Society is conducting a mock ballot of the draft IEEE POSIX standard for an Ada binding to P1003.1g, "Protocol Independent Interfaces" (i.e., sockets and XTI network interfaces). If you would like to participate in the mock ballot, or take an active role in the working group, or if you simply have an interest in observing the flow of information exchanged on this subject, please subscribe to this list by sending mail to: posix-ada-net-request@pasc.org with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message. SOURCE: Shane P. McCarron, Testing Research Manger, P1003.5c Working Group, ahby@themacs.com ******************************************* TARTAN ACQUIRED BY TEXAS INSTRUMENTS ******************************************* Tartan, Inc., a leading provider of Ada compilers, has recently been acquired by Texas Instruments. Tartan is a leading third-party provider of highly optimizing software tools for developers of real-time, embedded digital signal processing (DSP) applications. The combined expertise of both companies should result in producing the industry's highest performance DSP software tools. "Tartan is the clear technical leader in Ada and C++ compilers within the DSP industry, and this acquisition doubles our DSP development support resources. TI will be able to take advantage of Tartan's expertise and technology to dramatically accelerate TMS320 DSP technology development and to provide the best DSP customer application support in the industry," said Mike Hames, TI Semiconductor Group vice president and worldwide DSP manager. SOURCE: Texas Instruments press release, May 6, 1996. ***************** Ada 95 WORKSHOP ***************** A workshop titled "Software Methods and Tools for Ada 95" is being organized for September 16-20, 1996 in Brest, France. For more information, contact: Yvon Kermarrec Telecom Bretagne BP 832 29285 Brest, France e-mail : yvon.kermarrec@enst-bretagne.fr http://www-info.enst-bretagne.fr/~kermarre/ Ada95Workshop.html SOURCE: Dr. Yvon Kermarrec *********************************************************** The AdaIC's "Ada News Brief" is a compilation of summaries from Ada- related articles in trade magazines, newsletters and press releases. The AdaIC welcomes suggestions for and pointers to Ada-related articles. Contact the AdaIC at: Ada Information Clearinghouse P.O. Box 1866 Falls-Church, VA 22041 1-800/232-4211 or 703/681-2466 adainfo@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us To subscribe to the Ada News Brief listserv, send a message to: listproc@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us In the body of the message, write: subscribe adanews (your name) To unsubscribe, write: unsubscribe adanews No signatures please.