Re: Newcomers to

[brbarkstrom@gmail.com]

On Monday, October 6, 2014 6:42:15 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> In recent weeks/months, there's been an influx of newcomers to
> 
> comp.lang.ada.
> 
> 
> 
> First, welcome to the world of Ada. I hope you find the language
> 
> interesting and useful.
> 
> 
> 
> Second, how did you end up here ? :-)
> 
> 
> 
> The reason for asking is I'm wondering if there are some new Ada related
> 
> activities online which have grabbed the attention of people and made
> 
> them interested in learning Ada.
> 
> 
> 
> There's historically been a major problem with promoting Ada and I'm
> 
> now wondering if someone has succeeded in promoting Ada and we don't
> 
> even know about it. :-)
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
> 
> Simon.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> 
> Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

I have used Ada for something like 20 years, but haven't usually
been communicative about what I've done.  I've got a background in
Astronomy, large science team leadership on NASA big science projects,
data preservation, and related issues.  In this case, I needed to have
a backup system for a Windows XP system on which I do most of my work
and decided to renew an acquaintance with Unix (via Linux).  I've got
at least one paper published in a SIGADA conference (St. Petersburg, 2009 if
I remember correctly).  That dealt with design of multi-agent software.
I've also had a paper in Earth Science Informatics relating to provenance
(production history) tracking that embedded snippets of Ada as pseudocode.
I sent out my notice that I've gotten the AdaCore GNAT GPL software to
install and operate - apparently correctly - including the gps with graphics.
I'm not sure I've gotten up promotional interest, but I'd be interested in
starting a FOSS development group that promotes "citizen science", replication
of data archives (to make it more likely that we'll preserve scientific data),
and using Ada as an educational tool.  I've even gotten my own Intel Atom
barebones system on which I'm hoping to install Ubuntu, AdaCore GNAT GPL,
and probably both AWS and PolyOrb to create standalone Linux Beowulf clusters
that can engage in federated archive activities.  I've also published a poster
paper in a conference called "Concept Lattices and Their Applications 2013"
and another at a conference called WMSCI that were describing a new approach
to designing search engines to use a cooperative agent game approach that uses
navigation in a data archive's structure to engage in a dialog between a user
and the search engine.  It's kind of the archive knows what's in its 
collections; the user knows when a response from the archive satisfies his or
her information need.  They navigate through links the search engine provides
that give hints about what it perceives as potentially useful to the user.
I won't bother with the math here - but there's some interesting stuff - 
including how to deal with concurrent threads of activities.  If you're
interested, you probably need Burns and Welling's book on Concurrent programming
and the book by McCormick, Singhoff, and Hugues on Building Parallel, Embedded,
and Real-Time Applications with Ada (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Hugues recommended I send out a note to this site.

Bruce B.