Additional Comment Period for Upcoming Ada Revision

Additional Comment Period for Upcoming Ada Revision

[Randy Brukardt]

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 9 (WG 9) is responsible for the maintenance and 
revision of the Ada Programming Language and associated standards and 
technical reports. As part of the language maintenance activity, WG 9 has 
established a group of Ada experts as the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG). The 
ARG receives input from the Ada community at large to consider for inclusion 
in revision to the Ada programming language standard. The WG 9 has produced 
a number of revisions to the language in accordance with ISO policy and to 
address the evolution of technology (Ada 83, Ada 95, Ada 2005, Ada 2012).

Presently, the ARG is nearing completion on a revision to Ada 2012 (known 
for now as Ada 202x) which includes new contracts and lightweight 
parallelism features. Concern has been raised that these new proposals have 
not been prototyped nor has the suitability for diverse target environments 
been assessed.

Therefore, the ARG is seeking comments, based on prototyping and review, on 
the new features (focused on the parallelism features) incorporated within 
the current draft of the Ada 202X standard. Comments should be submitted to 
ada-comment@ada-auth.org as described in the Ada Reference Manual 
Introduction 
(http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/rm12_w_tc1/html/RM-0-3.html#p58). Please 
include the draft number with any Ada Reference Manual references in your 
comment. Comments should be sent by 1 June 2020 in order to be considered 
for the revision. (Note: While not required, joining the mailing list as 
described at http://www.ada-auth.org/comment.html is recommended so that you 
receive any queries on or responses to your comment.)

The draft revision can be found at 
http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/ada2x.html. A list of issues addressed in 
Ada 202x can be found at 
http://www.ada-auth.org/ai-files/grab_bag/2020-Amendments.html.

                                 Randy Brukardt, ARG Editor

[You can find an on-line version of this announcement at 
https://www.adaic.org/2019/07/additional-comment-period-for-upcoming-ada-revision/.]

Re: Additional Comment Period for Upcoming Ada Revision

[Randy Brukardt]

I wrote:
...
...
> Presently, the ARG is nearing completion on a revision to Ada 2012 (known 
> for now as Ada 202x) which includes new contracts and lightweight 
> parallelism features. Concern has been raised that these new proposals 
> have not been prototyped nor has the suitability for diverse target 
> environments been assessed.

To translate this announcement into plain English, the completion date of 
Ada 202x has been pushed back a year and a half in order to get more 
feedback on the proposed changes. Most of the major features went from rough 
outlines last fall to a completed standard with detailed wording by May. 
This rate of completion was just too much for most interested parties 
outside of the ARG to keep up with.

Rather than standardize something under-baked that might have to be changed 
in a few years, we're dialing back the amount of work and letting the Ada 
community catch up.

This comment period is not intended to introduce additional new features; 
such comments are always welcome but most will be deferred until the 
following revision. (Of course, additional features related to the ones 
already intended for the revision are possible.)

                                       Randy.

Re: Additional Comment Period for Upcoming Ada Revision

[Stephen Leake]

On Friday, July 26, 2019 at 8:02:41 PM UTC-7, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> I wrote:
> ...
> ...
> > Presently, the ARG is nearing completion on a revision to Ada 2012 (known 
> > for now as Ada 202x) which includes new contracts and lightweight 
> > parallelism features. Concern has been raised that these new proposals 
> > have not been prototyped nor has the suitability for diverse target 
> > environments been assessed.

Thanks to you and the ARG for all your work!

-- Stephe

Re: Additional Comment Period for Upcoming Ada Revision

[moy]

I would add that participation in the new Ada/SPARK RFC website hosted by AdaCore is very welcome for anyone who wants to influence the future of Ada and/or SPARK:

https://github.com/AdaCore/ada-spark-rfcs

Participation can come in many flavors:
- signal your opinion on Pull Requests (PR) by adding a thumb-up/thumb-down on the first message of the PR
- comment on a PR to refine your opinion
- propose an RFC as a PR for others to comment