Learn Ada 95! - Free Ada-Belgium course starts 98/09/23

[dirk@neptunus.cs.kuleuven.ac.be (Dirk Craeynest)]

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                       Call for Participation 
                                   
                            Learn Ada 95!
                                   
                 Ada-Belgium presents a free course 
                                   
                    Bi-weekly on Wednesday evening
                     Starting September 23, 1998

                      U.L.B., Brussels, Belgium 

   http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/events/local.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Modern society is becoming very dependent upon software. Our
  transport systems, financial systems, medical systems and defense
  systems all depend to a very large degree upon software. As a
  consequence the safety of many human lives and much property now
  depends upon the reliable functioning of software. Moreover, the
  fall in the cost of hardware has now made possible the development
  of large software systems.
  
  Ada is a programming language of special value in the development
  of large programs which must work reliably. [...] Ada is a modern
  programming language suitable for those application areas which
  benefit from the discipline of organized development, that is,
  Software Engineering; it is a general purpose language with special
  applicability to real-time and embedded systems. [...]
  
  Although Ada was originally designed to provide a single flexible
  yet portable language for real-time embedded systems to meet the
  needs of the US DoD, its domain of application has expanded to
  include many other areas, such as large-scale information systems,
  distributed systems, scientific computation, and systems
  programming. Furthermore, its user base has expanded to include all
  major defense agencies of the Western world, the whole of the
  aerospace community and increasingly many areas in civil and
  private sectors such as telecommunications, process control and
  monitoring systems. Indeed, the expansion in the civil sector is
  such that civil applications now generate the dominant revenues of
  many vendors.
  
  (from "Ada 95 Rationale: The Language, The Standard Libraries",
  John Barnes (ed.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1247,
  Springer-Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-540-63143-7) 
  

Ada-Belgium is a non-profit volunteer organization whose purpose is to
promote the use in Belgium of the Ada programming language, the first
ISO standardized object-oriented language.

This Fall, Ada-Belgium will run a course teaching Ada 95, at the
premises of the U.L.B. in Brussels, bi-weekly on Wednesday evenings,
starting on September 23, 1998.

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Highlights
----------

  * The course will be modular: you may skip modules discussing
    subjects you already know about without losing the thread of the
    course. The first module will be an introduction to Ada for
    programmers in other languages. After this the modules will be of
    interest to both newcomers to Ada and those already working in Ada
    83 who wish to learn Ada 95.
  * The course will take the form of evening sessions every two weeks.
    There will be small exercises during the evening sessions and
    larger exercises which may be completed between sessions. Ada
    compilers will be available for the completion of these exercises.
  * The course will be taught in English. Everyone interested is
    welcome.
    
More information is available below and at the Ada Course Home Page
via URL

   http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/events/local.html

Here you will find:
  * the full programme,
  * abstracts of the modules,
  * free Ada CD-ROMs for Ada-Belgium members,
  * documentation that will be handed out,
  * the location of the course,
  * registration,
  * the course secretariat,
  * acknowledgements,
  * a course registration form,
  * an Ada-Belgium membership application form.
    
This free Ada 95 course is an opportunity not to be missed! Do not
delay to register! 

Looking forward to meet many of you in Brussels.

Dirk Craeynest
Ada-Belgium Board
ada@belgium.eu.net

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Programme
---------

Preliminary schedule:

Wed 23 Sep 1998 - Introduction to Ada - part 1
Wed  7 Oct 1998 - Introduction to Ada - part 2

Wed 21 Oct 1998 - Object-Oriented Programming in Ada - part 1
Wed  4 Nov 1998 - Object-Oriented Programming in Ada - part 2

Wed 18 Nov 1998 - Parallel Programming in Ada

Fri  4 Dec 1998 - 8th Annual Ada-Belgium Seminar (tentative)
  (a full day event, with a.o. invited speakers and project
  presentations; theme: parallelism, tasking, real-time, etc.;
  separate registration will be required later)

Wed 16 Dec 1998 - Distributed Programming in Ada

more sessions will be scheduled in 1999

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Abstracts
---------

* "Introduction to Ada"
  Marc Gobin, Royal Military Academy, Brussel
  
  (2 sessions; abstract provided by the author)

  The introductory course will cover most of the core language, except
  for the material covered in the subsequent modules, such as object
  oriented features and tasking.
  The course will essentially be taught as a sequence of simple programs
  showing common aspects of programming in Ada.
  We will first walk to the simple predefined types and see how
  declarations are controlled.
  The power of Ada conditional statements and loop statements will be
  illustrated.  The introduction of new types and subtypes will be
  explained, including arrays, records and pointers.
  Procedures and functions will than be introduced, first embedded in
  the program itself and than defined outside a program ready to be used
  by as many programs as needed.  This means the introduction of
  packages and exceptions.
  The power of generic units will be shown and we will discuss the input
  output possibilities of the predefined packages Ada.Text_Io,
  Ada.Sequential_Io and Ada.Direct_Io.

  References
  - John Barnes: "Programming in Ada95, 2nd edition" (Addison Wesley)
  - Michael Feldman: "Software Construction and Data structures with
    Ada95" (Addison Wesley)
  - Michael Feldman & Koffman: "Ada95, Problem solving and program
    design" (Addison Wesley)
  - Ada 95 Reference Manual (Springer Verlag)
  - Ada 95 Rationale (Springer Verlag)
  - Ada 95 Style Guide (Springer Verlag)
    

* "Object-Oriented Programming in Ada"
  Luc Bernard, OFFIS nv/sa, Zaventem
  
  (2 sessions; abstract provided by the author)

  One of the major contributions of the 95 version of the Ada language
  is certainly the way it addresses Object-Oriented Design and
  Development.

  The two sessions will present how OO concepts have been added to the
  language on top of existing ones (types, derivations, etc...).  No
  particular knowledge of OO is required to follow these sessions since
  the basic concepts will be briefly presented.


* "Parallel Programming in Ada"
  Raymond Devillers, U.L.B., Bruxelles
  
  (1 session)

  Many more programmers are having to work in multi-threaded
  environments today: most modern operating systems support threads (or
  light-weight processes) to some extent.  The problem with threads is
  that they are not standard and so are not portable.  Every operating
  system has a differing set of application programmers' interfaces
  (APIs) and frequently differing scheduling and priority rules.  Thread
  programming is also notoriously difficult to manage in C and difficult
  to encapsulate in C++.  Neither C nor C++ provides any support for
  important issues in multi-threaded programming features such as
  re-entrant functions and interprocess communication (IPC).

  Unlike C++ Ada defines a model for concurrent programming as part of
  the language itself.  Few other languages (Occam and Java are
  examples) provide language level concurrency; other languages
  (Modula-3) provide a concurrency model through the use of standard
  library abstractions.  In Ada there are two base components: the task
  which encapsulates a concurrent process, and the protected type, which
  is a data structure that provides guarded access to its data.  These
  features can be used to develop responsive, high-performance
  applications utilizing one of the few truly cross-platform models for
  concurrent processing.

  The real-time systems annex provides additional facilities for
  programming in either a hard or a soft real-time environment.  The
  main thrust of this annex is to provide programmers of real-time
  systems with an environment which provides fixed, predictable
  scheduling of tasks and interrupts within an application.

  (from "Ada 95 for C and C++ Programmers", Simon Johnston, Addison
  Wesley Longman, 1997, ISBN 0-201-40363-3)


* "Distributed Programming in Ada"
  Yolande Berbers, K.U.Leuven, Leuven
  
  (1 session)

  As presented at the Ada-Belgium'97 Seminar on Developing Distributed
  Applications, several different approaches are available.  The most
  important ones are using CORBA or the Ada 95 distributed systems annex
  (or both).

  The Ada 95 programming language is a powerful and flexible language
  that provides a safe environment for creating reliable software.  The
  OMG Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a flexible
  environment for creating potentially distributed software components.
  The marriage of these two technologies results in a uniquely powerful
  environment for creating high performance, reliable, distributed
  software components.

  (from "Ada-Belgium'97 - Call for Participation", Ada-Belgium, 1997)

  Ada 95 is the first general-purpose language to provide a standard
  distributed programming paradigm.  By combining the distributed and
  object-oriented features of Ada 95, it is possible to create an
  application where objects are physically distributed over a network of
  machines, without having to interface to any low-level communication
  layer.  Likewise, by combining the distributed and real-time
  capabilities of Ada 95, it is possible to design applications which
  meet real-time constraints in a distributed environment.

  GNAT, and more specifically GLADE (GNAT Library for Ada Distributed
  Execution), is the first commercial implementation of the distributed
  Ada 95 programming model.  This implementation allows a distributed
  application to run on a network of heterogeneous machines, to support
  different network protocols, and to provide replication and
  fault-tolerance.

  (from "GLADE - Distributed systems in Ada 95", ACT Europe, 1998)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Free Ada CD-ROMs for Ada-Belgium members
----------------------------------------

Copies of the April 1998 Edition of the Walnut Creek Ada CD-ROM set,
provided by Ada-Belgium through an agreement with the Special Interest
Group on Ada of the ACM (ACM SIGAda), will be freely distributed to
direct Ada-Belgium members attending the course.  This CD-ROM set
includes a.o.  ports to lots of platforms of the GNU Ada 95 compiler
(GNAT), and Aonix' Ada 95 Compiler and Environment for Windows 95.  More
information on this April 1998 CD-ROM edition is available separately.

We still have a small number of another CD-ROM for those direct
Ada-Belgium members (first-come first-served) that couldn't attend the
Ada-Belgium'97 Seminar end of last year.  CCI (Competence Center
Informatik GmbH) provided copies of the Ada-Tour Version 2.0i CD-ROM
for distribution at the seminar.  This Ada-Tour offers an extensive
introduction to Ada 95 and is targeted to people wanting to find out
more about the language, its foundations and possibilities.  More
information is available on the CCI Web-pages (in German).

Documentation
-------------

We will try to provide copies of the presentations at each course
session.

In addition, we still have a small number of documentation sets of the
Ada-Belgium'97 Seminar on Developing Distributed Applications for direct
members not attending the seminar (as availability permits).  This set
contains, a.o., a printed copy of the CORBA IDL to Ada 95 mapping
document, thanks to the assistance of DG XII at the European Commission,
printed proceedings with papers related to the presentations, copies of
slides, and additional documents and papers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Location
--------

The following concerns the course modules, not the seminar:
  * Place:
    Universite' Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
    Boulevard du Triomphe
    Campus de la Plaine
    1050 Brussels
  * Room:
    "Salle des Professeurs", building NO, 9th level, room NO.9.06.
  * Time:
    19:00 - 22:00 (including break)
    
An access plan to the Campus de la Plaine of the U.L.B. is available
via the Ada Course Web-pages.  Parking facilities are at access no. 2
(parking Fraiteur, the closest) or no. 4 (parking UAE).  You can check
on-line how to get to Brussels and how to reach the V.U.B./U.L.B.
depending on the means of transport you use.


Registration
------------

Advance registration is prefered. Registration is free of charge.

Please return the attached Registration Form as soon as possible.

As mentioned above, for direct Ada-Belgium members registration includes
the option to receive a free copy of the latest edition of the Walnut
Creek double Ada CD-ROM (April 1998), containing a.o. the current
editions of two Ada 95 compilers: the public GNAT distribution from ACT,
for lots of platforms, and the ObjectAda Special Edition from Aonix, for
Windows 95 and NT.

A limited supply of additional material that was distributed at the
Ada-Belgium'97 Seminar is also available fro direct members on their
request (see above and registration form).

Others registering for (a) course module(s) can optionally become
Ada-Belgium members, and hence also receive the free CD-ROMs and
documentation.


Course Secretariat
------------------

Ada-Belgium Secretariat
Attn. Prof. R. Devillers
c/o Universite' Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.)
Boulevard du Triomphe / Triomflaan
Campus de la Plaine, CP 212
B-1050 Brussels
Belgium
Phone:  (32)-2-650.56.11
Fax:    (32)-2-650.56.09
E-mail: ada@belgium.eu.net
WWW:    http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           Acknowledgements
                                   
We would like to thank our sponsors for their continued support of our
activities: John Robinson & Associates, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
 (K.U.Leuven), Koninklijke Militaire School / Ecole Royale Militaire
 (K.M.S./E.R.M.), OFFIS nv/sa, Rational Software Corporation, Trasys
          nv/sa, and Universite' Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.).
                                   
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Information on this and other Ada-Belgium events is available on the
   Internet at the Ada-Belgium World-Wide-Web pages and is updated
                       regularly. Check out URL
                                   
   http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/events/local.html

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Ada-Belgium Ada Course Registration
________________________________________________________________________

Please mail to                                  or fax to
--------------                                  ---------
   Ada-Belgium Secretariat                         + 32 (0)2 650.56.09
   c/o Universite' Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
   Attn. Prof. R. Devillers                     or e-mail to
   Boulevard du Triomphe / Triomflaan           ------------
   Campus de la Plaine, CP 212
   B - 1050 Brussels, Belgium                      ada@belgium.eu.net

Personal Information
--------------------
Name  __________________________   First name  _________________________
Job title / Occupation  ________________________________________________
Company / Institution  _________________________________________________
Address  _______________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Zip code  ______________________   City  _______________________________
Country  _______________________   E-mail  _____________________________
Telephone  _____________________   Telefax  ____________________________

I want to register, free of charge, for Ada-Belgium's Ada Course that
will take place at the U.L.B. in Brussels, starting in the fall of 1998,
bi-weekly on Wednesday evenings 19:00 - 22:00.

I will attend the following sessions:       (Please tick all that apply)
-------------------------------------
___  Wed 23 Sep 1998 - Introduction to Ada - part 1
___  Wed  7 Oct 1998 - Introduction to Ada - part 2
___  Wed 21 Oct 1998 - Object-Oriented Programming in Ada - part 1
___  Wed  4 Nov 1998 - Object-Oriented Programming in Ada - part 2
___  Wed 18 Nov 1998 - Parallel Programming in Ada
___  Wed 16 Dec 1998 - Distributed Programming in Ada
     (more sessions will be scheduled in 1999)

Indication of interest (separate registration will be required later):
___  Fri  4 Dec 1998 - 8th Annual Ada-Belgium Seminar (tentative)
       (full day event, theme: parallelism, tasking, real-time, etc.)

Membership Status for 1998                        (Please tick one item)
--------------------------
___  I am an individual Ada-Belgium member
___  I am appointed contact person of a corporate Ada-Belgium member
___  I want to register as Ada-Belgium member
       (please mail or fax an Ada-Belgium membership application form
       and pay the appropriate fee)
___  I am not, nor do I want to register as, Ada-Belgium member
       (and hence am NOT entitled to the free Ada CD-ROMs and
        documention set)

For Ada-Belgium Members Only                (Please tick all that apply)
----------------------------
___  I would like to receive a copy of the Walnut Creek Ada CD-ROM set
       (latest edition, i.e. April 1998)
___  I would like to receive a copy of the documentation set of the
       Ada-Belgium'97 Seminar on Developing Distributed Applications
       (as availability permits)
___  I would like to receive a copy of the Ada-Tour CD-ROM that was
       handed out at the Ada-Belgium'97 Seminar (release 2.0i, as
       availability permits)

Signature  _________________________   Date  ___________________________

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1998 Ada-Belgium Membership Application
________________________________________________________________________

Please mail to                                  or fax to
--------------                                  ---------
   Ada-Belgium                                     + 32 (0)2 650 56 09
   c/o Universite' Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
   Boulevard du Triomphe
   Campus de la Plaine, CP 212
   B - 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium                         Page 1 of _______


Personal Information
--------------------
Name  __________________________   First name  _________________________
For Corporate Members: Name of Appointed Contact Person
Job title / Occupation  ________________________________________________
Company / Institution  _________________________________________________
Address  _______________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Zip code  ______________________   City  _______________________________
Country  _______________________   E-mail  _____________________________
Telephone  _____________________   Telefax  ____________________________

The above address is  ___  my company address
                      ___  my private address

Membership  (Includes Ada-Europe Membership & Benefits Package)
----------                               (Please tick one item)
___  Individual Member  (annual fee: 1 000 BEF)
___  Corporate Member   (annual fee: 5 000 BEF)
___  Student Member     (annual fee:   400 BEF)

Payment information                      (Please tick one item)
-------------------
YES, I agree to pay the appropriate registration fee to Ada-Belgium VZW
___  to account number 979-3829669-17 (Argenta), or
___  to account number 409-9054291-64 (Kredietbank),
     if paying from outside Belgium
mentioning "1998 Ada-Belgium Membership"

Ada-related Points of Interest
------------------------------
If you have any specific point of interest, please mention them in
attachment to this form.

Additional Addresses
--------------------
If you know other people or companies in Belgium who are interested
in Ada, please mention their names and addresses in attachment to
this form, and we will contact them with information on Ada-Belgium.
Thank you.


Signature  _________________________   Date  ___________________________


Attachment  ____________________________________________________________

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