Press Release - Ada 2012 Language Standard Approved by ISO

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ada 2012 Language Standard Approved by ISO

Language revision adds contract-based programming, multicore support,
and other advanced features


GENEVA, Switzerland, December 18, 2012 - The Ada Resource Association
(ARA) and Ada-Europe today announced the approval and publication of
the latest version of the Ada programming language by the Geneva-based
International Organization for Standardization (ISO).  The language
revision, known as Ada 2012, was under the auspices of ISO/IEC
JTC1/SC22/WG9 and was conducted by the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG)
subunit of WG9, with sponsorship in part from the ARA and Ada-Europe.
The formal approval of the standard was issued on November 20 by
ISO/IEC JTC 1, and the standard was published on December 15.

Ada 2012 brings significant enhancements to Ada, most notably in the
area of "contract-based programming."  New features here include the
ability to specify preconditions and postconditions for subprograms,
and invariants for private (encapsulated) types.  These take the form
of Boolean expressions that can be interpreted (under programmer
control) as run-time conditions to be checked.  The contract-based
programming features fit in smoothly with Ada's Object-Oriented
Programming model, and support the type substitutability guidance
supplied in the Object-Oriented Technologies and Related Techniques
Supplement (DO-332) to the new avionics software safety standard
DO-178C / ED-12C.

Other new features in Ada 2012 include enhancements to the containers
library, additional expressiveness through features such as conditional
expressions and more powerful iterators, and support for multicore
platforms (task affinities, and the extension of the Ravenscar profile
- standardized in Ada 2005 as an efficient and predictable tasking
subset for high-integrity real-time systems - to multiprocessor and
multicore environments).

A technical summary of Ada 2012, together with an explanation of
the language's benefits and a set of links to further information,
is available at www.ada2012.org, a website maintained by the Ada
Resource Association.

"Ada 2012 is a major advance in the state of the art in programming
languages," said Dr. Edmond Schonberg, Rapporteur of the ARG.
"The new features answer real user needs, and help cement Ada's
reputation as a language of choice for systems where reliability,
safety, and security are paramount."

"I would like to give special thanks to Randy Brukardt for his
editorial work on the Language Reference Manual, to Ed Schonberg
and the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG) for their excellent work in
developing the language revision, and to all members of WG 9 in
producing a quality document that achieved unanimous approval from
our parent organization," said Dr. Joyce Tokar, Convenor of WG9.
"Ada 2012 is a significant technical accomplishment."

With the growing complexity of software systems in most aspects of
our daily professional and personal life, program correctness is a
paramount concern.  Ada 2012 provides outstanding solutions to that
end, which can be applied both in industry for production software
development, and in academia for teaching and research.


About the Ada Resource Association

The Ada Resource Association (ARA) is a non-profit organization
chartered to support the continued evolution of the Ada language and
its infrastructure, to serve as a source of information about Ada and
its usage, and to promote Ada as a language for effective software
engineering.  To these ends the ARA maintains the Ada Information
Clearinghouse website www.adaic.org and has provided funding for the
development and maintenance of the Ada language standard and the Ada
Conformance Assessment Test Suite.  For information about the ARA,
including sponsorship opportunities, please visit www.adaresource.com.
The ARA is headquartered in Oakton, VA (US).


About Ada-Europe

Ada-Europe is the international non-profit organization that
promotes the knowledge and use of the Ada programming language in
academia, research and industry in Europe.  Its flagship event is the
annual international conference on reliable software technologies, a
high-quality technical and scientific event that has been successfully
running in the current format for the last 17 years.  Ada-Europe has
member organizations all over the continent, in Belgium, Denmark,
France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as individual
members in many other countries.  For information about Ada-Europe,
its charter, activities and sponsors, please visit: www.ada-europe.org.
Ada-Europe is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

A PDF version of this press release is available at www.ada-europe.org.


Organization Contacts

Ada Resource Association
Ben Brosgol, ARA President
brosgol@adacore.com

Ada-Europe
Tullio Vardanega, Ada-Europe President
president@ada-europe.org


Press Contacts

Ada Resource Association
Jessie Glockner, Rainier Communications
Tel: +1-508-475-0025 x140
jglockner@rainierco.com
http://twitter.com/JessieGlockner

Ada-Europe
Dirk Craeynest, Ada-Europe Vice-president
c/o KU Leuven, Department of Computer Science
dirk.craeynest@cs.kuleuven.be

(Ada2012.1)