CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending May 22, 1998

CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending May 22, 1998

[Computer Systems Engineering IC mail list owner]

CONTENTS:
ASIS TO BECOME ISO DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
ASIS ABLE TO REBUILD ACVC WITHOUT ACCESS TO SOURCE CODE
NEW TOOL FOR ADA Y2K REMEDIATION
BIG 3 AUTOMAKERS FIGHT 2000 BUG

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ASIS TO BECOME ISO DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD

Topic:   Ada
 
The Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS) passed the International 
Standardization Organization (ISO) Final Committee Draft ballot in 
March.  Upon the resolution of national comments for the Draft 
International Standard and the successful completion of the Final Draft 
International Standard ballot, ASIS will become an ISO International 
Standard. Fourteen nations voted for approval:  Belgium, Canada, Czech 
Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway,
Russian Federation, UK, Ukraine, and USA.  The final version for the 
Draft International Standard should be available by May 22nd.  Further 
information on the ISO standardization of ASIS and an ASIS tutorial are 
For additional information, please contact Currie Colket, (703) 242-4561 
or colket@acm.org.

Source:  Currie Colket, Chair ASISWG/Chair ASISRG,SIGAda ACM, (703) 242-4561 
or colket@acm.org.

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ASIS ABLE TO REBUILD ACVC WITHOUT ACCESS TO SOURCE CODE

Topic:  Ada

In 1992, it was speculated that ASIS could be used to reconstruct the 
source code of an entire Ada partition by making ASIS queries in the 
compilation environment.  This speculation has become a reality.  A paper 
will be presented in June at Ada-Europe '98 that will describe the 
development of an extensive testing facility for ASIS implementations.  
The paper, "Quality-for-ASIS: A Portable Testing Facility for ASIS," 
describes a method that was used to test the generic procedure 
Traverse_Element.  The Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC) test 
suite containing all possible Ada 95 syntactic elements was compiled and 
reconstructed using only ASIS queries.  ASIS for GNAT was able to 
completely rebuild the ACVC without access to the source code.  This is 
considered a very important achievement, and a clear indicator of the 
maturity of ASIS.  The test demonstrates that ASIS implementations can 
correctly handle every Ada 95 syntactic element.  A copy of the paper is 
available at http://www.acm.org/sigada/WG/asiswg, and the 
Quality-for-ASIS facility is freely available at 
ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/ASIS.  The readme file is named readme.Q4A, and 
the distribution is provided in a file named Q4A.tar.gz.

Source: Currie Colket, Chair ASISWG/Chair ASISRG,SIGAda ACM,
(703) 242-4561 or colket@acm.org.

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NEW TOOL FOR ADA Y2K REMEDIATION

Topic:  Ada/Y2k

Reasoning, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, CA, has announced the 
release of Revolution 2000, an advanced toolset for Y2k date remediation 
available for Ada.  Revolution 2000 is intended to deliver high-speed 
automated remediation, cover the key stages of analysis and correction, and 
solve the problem of locating and remediating date-sensitive code.  The 
toolset was developed by the Software Revolution, Inc., headquartered in 
Bellevue, WA, and is based on the Reasoning transformation software 
architecture, which includes an object store called the Reasoning5 Code-base 
Management System, Language Gateways, and the Software Developer Kit.  
Together, these components form the foundation for the development and 
execution of Transform Plug-Ins, such as Revolution for Ada.  For further 
information about Revolution 2000 for Ada, see 
http://www.reasoning.com/revada.html.

Source:  Press Release, Reasoning, Inc., "Reasoning Expands Y2K 
Remediation Offering to Include C, Fortran, and Ada:  Y2k Project 
Planners Now Better Armed to Meet Millennium Challenge with new Automated 
Remediation and Inspection Tools", May 12, 1998  
http://www.year2000.com/releases/Reasoning_5_12_1998.html.

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BIG 3 AUTOMAKERS FIGHT 2000 BUG

Topic:  Y2k

According to this article, Chrysler Corp. shut down one of its assembly 
plants last year and turned all the plant's clocks to Dec. 31, 1999.  
They got a lot of surprises.  The security system shut down and would not 
let anybody in or out of the plant, and their time-clock system failed, 
which meant no pay for workers.  GM, Ford, and thousands of parts supplier 
have similar horror stories.  GM has hundreds, and possibly thousands, of 
people working on the problem, and has stated that "this problem touches 
everything and everyone."  There is no easy solution.  Programmers must 
debug systems one by one, and GM alone must review more than 2 billion 
lines of code that operates office computers and up to 500,000 computerized, 
factory-floor devices that could crash Dec. 31, 1999.  Their biggest 
worry, however, is suppliers.  There are more than 40,000 companies with 
70,000 factories and offices around the world that supply parts to the 
Big 3.  The auto makers are worried, because they cannot legally "swoop 
in" and debug software that does not belong to them.  To combat glitches 
that are anticipated from deep within the supply chain, auto makers have 
set up toll-free phone lines and on-site workshops where suppliers can 
get Y2k advice.  The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) has launched a 
task force to provide on-line tips, a database, and a self-assessment survey 
(http://www.aiag.org).  They are looking at contingency plans and possible 
swat teams that could go in and help out suppliers at the last minute, 
but they're worried that the bug can strike them long before Jan. 1, 2000.  
According to the AIAG, if a company's planning horizon is 18 months, 
for example, the company's software could go haywire in July.

Source:  Rachel Konrad, Knight Ridder, "Big 3 fight 2000 bug in upgrade", 
May 16, 1998, 
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=151698&ID=s390920

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