Amiga Plus 1995 #2/Amiga Plus CD - 1995 - No. 2.iso/internet/faq/englisch/comp.lang.ada

Text File | 1995-04-11 | 99.4 KB | 2,380 lines

Archive-name: computer-lang/Ada/comp-lang-ada/part1
Comp-lang-ada-archive-name: comp-lang-ada/part1
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 17 February 1995
Last-posted: 19 January 1995

                                 comp.lang.ada
                       Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is part 1 of a 3-part posting.
Part 2 begins with question 4.5.
Part 3 begins with question 9.
They should be the next postings in this thread.


Introduction

   Ada is an advanced, modern programming language, designed and
   standardized to support and strongly encourage widely recognized
   software engineering principles: reliability, portability, modularity,
   reusability, programming as a human activity, efficiency,
   maintainability, information hiding, abstract data types, genericity,
   concurrent programming, object-oriented programming, etc.

   All Ada compilers must pass a validation test. Ada is not a superset
   or extension of any other language. Ada does not allow the dangerous
   practices or effects of old languages, although it does provide
   standardized mechanisms to interface with other languages such as
   Fortran, Cobol, and C.

   Ada is recognized as an excellent vehicle for education in programming
   and software engineering, including for a first programming course.

   Ada is defined by an international standard (the language reference
   manual, or LRM), which has been revised in 1995. Ada is taught and
   used all around the world (not just in the USA). Ada is used in a very
   wide range of applications: banking, medical devices,
   telecommunications, air traffic control, airplanes, railroad
   signalling, satellites, rockets, etc.

   The latest version of this FAQ is always accessible through WWW as
   http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/comp-lang-ada.html

Maintenance

   This FAQ is maintained on an individual volunteer basis, by Magnus
   Kempe ([e-mail]). [Note: This is done as a hobby, not
   in my capacity as an employee at the Swiss Federal Institute of
   Technology. --MK]

   Some time ago, the AdaIC announced it would maintain its own FAQ
   pointing to Ada items available on the Ada Joint Program Office's
   host. In the meantime, this FAQ still contains pointers to AJPO and
   AdaIC material.


     _________________________________________________________________

   Report of a product, service, or event, etc., does not constitute an
   endorsement. Opinions (if any) expressed are those of the submitters
   and/or maintainer.
     _________________________________________________________________


Table of Contents:


     * 1: Recent changes to the FAQ

     * 2: Information about this document

     * 3: Elementary questions
          + 3.1: What is Ada?
               o 3.1.1: Where can I get other information on Ada?
          + 3.2: I have seen the language name capitalized as ADA, as
            well as Ada. Which is right?
          + 3.3: What is Ada 9X?
               o 3.3.1: Are there already Ada 9X books?
          + 3.4: Is Ada a registered trademark (TM) of the US government?
          + 3.5: Where can I find an electronic version of the Ada
            language reference manual (LRM)?
          + 3.6: Is Ada used in commercial applications?
          + 3.7: How do I do [choose_a_goal] in Ada?
          + 3.8: I think Ada could really benefit from having
            [choose_a_feature] from [choose_a_language] ...
          + 3.9: I just saw a very anti-Ada post that I think is
            definitely wrong. Why didn't anybody post a response to it?
            Should I?
          + 3.10: I very strongly agree/disagree with the Ada mandate (or
            a post dealing with it). Why doesn't anyone praise/criticize
            it? Should I?
          + 3.11: Why shouldn't I cross-post my comp.lang.ada messages to
            other comp.lang.* newsgroups?
          + 3.12: I don't have FTP service on the host where I have an
            account. Is there any other way I can access FTP sites?
               o 3.12.1: The AJPO host has a special e-mail service for
                 FTP.


     * 4: Compilers
          + 4.1: Is there a list of validated Ada compilers?
          + 4.2: Is there a public-domain/free/shareware Ada compiler or
            interpreter?
               o 4.2.1: Ada/Ed -- An Interpreter for Ada 83
               o 4.2.2: GW-Ada/Ed -- a souped-up version of Ada/Ed for
                 386/486 DOS and Macintosh machines
               o 4.2.3: GNAT, The GNU NYU Ada Translator -- An Ada 9X
                 Compiler
          + 4.3: What cheap (<500$) Ada compilers are available?
          + 4.4: Is there an Ada compiler for common machine X/common
            operating system Y?
               o 4.4.1: on the Macintosh?
               o 4.4.2: native for OS/2?
          + 4.5: How can I contact Ada compiler vendor?


     * 5: Organizations that deal with Ada and Ada issues
          + 5.1: Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO)
          + 5.2: Ada Information Clearinghouse (AdaIC)
          + 5.3: ACM/SIGAda
          + 5.4: ISO WG 9


     * 6: Tools
          + 6.1: Is there an Ada-mode for Emacs?
          + 6.2: Are there versions of lex and yacc that generate Ada
            code?
          + 6.3: Where can I get a yacc/ayacc grammar to read Ada code?
          + 6.4: What is Anna, and where can I get it?
          + 6.5: What is DRAGOON, and where can I get it?
          + 6.6: Where can I get language translators? And should I?
          + 6.7: What is ASIS?
               o 6.7.1: How can I get hold of ASIS?
               o 6.7.2: How can I find out more about ASIS? and Can I
                 take part in its development?


     * 7: Bindings
          + 7.1: General
          + 7.2: POSIX
               o 7.2.1: What is the status of the POSIX/Ada work?
               o 7.2.2: How can I get a copy of POSIX/Ada?
               o 7.2.3: Is POSIX/Ada available via FTP?
          + 7.3: X Window System


     * 8: Is there a list of good Ada books?

     * 9: Resources
          + 9.1: What FTP sites exist that contain information about Ada
            or Ada source?
          + 9.2: Reuse
               o 9.2.1: Are there any free, public-domain, or other
                 general-access software repositories that contain Ada
                 source code and information on reuse?
               o 9.2.2: Is there a database of reusable Ada software
                 components?
          + 9.3: Where can I get Ada benchmark programs?
          + 9.4: Are there any dial-up BBS systems that deal with Ada?


     * 10: Credits

     * 11: Copying this FAQ


     _________________________________________________________________


1: Recent changes to the FAQ


     * 950207: revised introduction.
     * 950126: revised BBS section.
     * 950124: approved for posting in *.answers.
     * 950111: Alsys changed name to Thomson Software Products.
     * 950109: electronic versions of the Ada LRM.
     * 950106: Updated annotated list of books.
     * 950104: Don't cross-post from comp.lang.ada.
     * 941222: updated list of FTP sites.
     * 941219: added Nebbe's rule.
     * 941219: fixed ftp URLs.
     * 941209: How to contact vendors.
     * 941019: How do I do [choose_a_goal] in Ada?
     * 941010: Updated the list of Ada books.
     * 940916: How to access FTP by email.
     * 940831: What is Ada, and where can one get more information?
     * 940830: Ada 9X books.
     * 940818: added an explicit copyright statement.
     * 940817: love/hatred of the Ada mandate.
     * 940816: where are yacc grammars for Ada?
     * 940815: made into a hypertext version to browse on WWW.
     * 940815: is there an Ada compiler for machine X with OS Y?
     * 940815: pointer to list of reusable components.
     * 940812: references to network resources now follow the URL
       convention.
     * 940812: completely revised the structure.
     * 9408: new maintainer.


   What's important and missing:
     * description of the ACVC.
     * CD-ROMs.
     * list of regular Ada-related events.


     _________________________________________________________________


2: Information about this document

   This file is posted monthly to comp.lang.ada, comp.answers, and
   news.answers.

   This document has a home on the Ada WWW Server, in hypertext format (
   URL http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/comp-lang-ada.html ). The text-only
   version is also available in directory
   ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/FAQ

   It is available--as posted in *.answers--on rtfm.mit.edu, which
   archives all FAQ files posted to *.answers; see
   ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/computer-lang/Ada

   [A pretty old version of the FAQ is still available for downloading
   via anonymous FTP from the AJPO host (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu), in directory
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/comp-lang-ada (files cla-faq1 and
   cla-faq2).]

   For notes on FTP, or the lack thereof, see question 3.10, describing
   how to use FTP by e-mail.

   Magnus Kempe maintains this document; it's not a job, it's a hobby.
   Feedback (corrections, suggestions, ideas) about it is to be sent via
   e-mail to [e-mail] . Thanks.

   In all cases, the most up-to-date version of the FAQ is the version
   maintained on the Ada WWW Server. Please excuse any formatting
   inconsistencies in the posted, text-only version of this document, as
   it is automatically generated from the on-line, hypertext version.

     _________________________________________________________________


3: Elementary questions


3.1: What is Ada?

   Ada is an advanced, modern programming language, designed and
   standardized to support widely recognized software engineering
   principles: reliability, portability, modularity, reusability,
   programming as a human activity, efficiency, maintainability,
   information hiding, abstract data types, concurrent programming,
   object-oriented programming, et caetera. All Ada compilers must pass a
   validation test.


    3.1.1: Where can I get other information on Ada?

   If you have questions which this FAQ does not answer, you may contact
   the Ada Information Clearinghouse (see below, question 5.2), use the
   Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.ada, read the Ada Yearbook published by Ada
   UK, or the Ada Resources published by the ACM.

   To find out more, you may also use the Ada WWW Server, URL
   http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/, which has a companion FAQ:
   Ada/ada-www-server (also regularly posted to comp.lang.ada).

   I encourage you to check out the changes listed early in the document
   each time this FAQ is posted.


3.2: I have seen the language name capitalized as ADA, as well as Ada. Which
is right?

   The correct capitalization is Ada. It's a proper name, for Ada
   Lovelace (1815-1852), who is regarded to be the world's first
   programmer. Using all-caps usually implies an acronym, and this forum
   is not devoted to the American Dental Association :-).

   In addition, ISO and IEEE recommend as a general guideline to spell
   like proper names the language names that are pronounced as they are
   spelled (e.g. Ada, Pascal, Cobol, Basic, Fortran). Note: that a name
   originally resulted from abbreviation is considered irrelevant. For
   language names that are phonetically spelled (e.g. C, C++, APL, PL/1),
   they should be spelled in all uppercase.


3.3: What is Ada 9X?

   Ada 9X refers to the revised version of Ada. (Ada 83 is the current
   ANSI/ISO standard.) The Ada 9X Project Office is responsible for the
   revision, and is working closely with the international community to
   ensure Ada retains its ISO status. The Ada 9X process is very open.
   Volunteer Reviewers are welcome and should contact
   [e-mail] . Many documents are available for
   downloading from directory ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ada9x on the
   AJPO host (see question 9.1, FTP sites for more information.) For
   further information, contact the Ada 9X Project Office, PL/VTES,
   Kirtland AFB, New Mexico 87117-5776.

   Ada 9X includes four major areas of enhancement: support for
   object-oriented programming, data-oriented synchronization,
   programming-in-the-large, and realtime systems.

   A great deal of attention is being focused on transitioning to Ada 9X.
   The validation test suite will be available early (in draft form prior
   to ANSI/ISO approval with official release 3 months after ANSI/ISO
   approval). However, for a two-year period vendors will be able to
   focus on enhanced areas of the language that their customer base wants
   first; i.e., the first validation test suite will be modularly
   constructed. Vendors are also being encouraged to release
   beta-versions of their Ada 9X implementations prior to validation.

   There is also a (still partial) GNU Ada 9X compilation system (GNAT)
   available since late 1993. (See question 4.2.3.)


    3.3.1: Are there already Ada 9X books?

   The Ada 9X Rationale explains how to use the new mechanisms of the
   language; it is quite readable. The new Reference Manual is THE
   reference, of course. The Annotated Reference Manual provides detailed
   explanations of the rules of the language (good for implementors and
   language lawyers). All three are available by FTP from the AJPO host,
   in directory ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ada9x/rm9x (v5.0).

   There are also a few commercial books which have sections on Ada 9X or
   have integrated the revised definition of the language into their
   presentation:
     * J. Barnes. Programming in Ada: Plus an Overview of Ada 9X.
       Addison Wesley. Price $43.25. ISBN 0-201-62407-9.
     * G. Booch and D. Bryan. Software Engineering with Ada.
       3rd ed., Benjamin/Cummings, 1994. ISBN 0-8053-0608-0.
     * Naiditch. Rendez-vous with Ada 9X.
       2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Price $44.95. ISBN 0-471-01276-9.
     * J. Skansholm. Ada From the Beginning.
       2nd ed., Addison-Wesley


3.4: Is Ada a registered trademark (TM) of the US government?

   No, but it used to be; there is a "certification mark", though, which
   is to be used only for validated compilers.

   Prior to November 30, 1987, the name "Ada" was a registered trademark.
   In the December 1987 issue of the Ada Information Clearinghouse
   Newsletter, Ms. Virginia Castor, then Director of the Ada Joint
   Program Office (AJPO), announced that the Department of Defense would
   thereafter rely on a certification mark instead of a trademark.

   (The certification mark is a Pentagon-shaped symbol with a "Validated
   Ada" message, and can be seen on the documentation of validated Ada
   compilers.)

   The text of the 1987 AJPO announcement is available as an AdaIC file
   on the AJPO host, in
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/policy/trademrk.txt.


3.5: Where can I find an electronic version of the Ada reference manual (LRM)?


   The revised Reference Manual (RM for Ada 95--v5.95 final draft) is
   available, in plain ASCII and Postscript files, in directories
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ada9x/mrtcomments/rm9x/v5.95 and
   (compressed files)
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ada9x/mrtcomments/rm9x/v5.95.compresse
   d

   This is dated 25 November 1994 and is freely distributable. For
   language lawyers and implementors, the Annotated Ada Reference Manual
   (AARM) is also available there.

   The old, Ada 83 LRM is available in plain ASCII files in directory
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/lrm

   Both Ada 83 and Ada 9X reference manuals also exist in hypertext
   format, accessible through the Ada WWW Server (see the companion FAQ:
   Ada/ada-www-server).


3.6: Is Ada used in commercial applications?

   Yes. Ada is used in e.g. airplanes, air traffic control systems,
   financial systems, telecommunications systems, medical devices.
     * The AJPO host on the Internet contains a report of Commercial Ada
       Users Working Group (CAUWG) of the Association for Computing
       Machinery's Special Interest Group on Ada (ACM SIGAda). Dated June
       1993, the report is a survey of applications from around the world
       that are written in Ada. It is in
       ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/document/cauwg.txt.

     * The Ada Information Clearinghouse maintains a list of Ada projects
       that have submitted information for the AdaIC's Ada Usage
       Database. It is only a sample of Ada projects, but it includes
       both commercial and government-related projects. For details on
       contacting the AdaIC, see question 5.2.

     * On the AJPO host, directory ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/usage
       contains a summary of the Ada Usage Database and a number of
       individual project descriptions that may be of interest.


3.7: How do I do [choose_a_goal] in Ada?

   This kind of question often revolves around an issue which is
   dependent on a specific implementation or operating system. Thus, in
   order to improve the odds of getting a useful answer, one should
   indicate what the host and target environments are (Ada vendor,
   compiler version, OS version, machine). Ada implementations normally
   come with a vendor-supplied library which provides hooks to the
   environment (operating system, graphics, etc.); check the
   documentation.

   Even in the case of things that are in the language, there are
   implementation dependencies that make it helpful to always have this
   information at hand if people want the most effective help. Note that
   annex F requires "the reference manual of each Ada implementation" to
   "include an appendix (called Appendix F) that describes all
   implementation-dependent characteristics."


3.8: I think Ada could really benefit from having [choose_a_feature] from
[choose_a_language],
or:
I think Ada is clearly [inferior_or_superior] to [choose_a_language] because
it has [choose_a_feature].

   Such posts almost always result in religious language wars and only
   waste bandwidth. PLEASE refrain from such posts unless you have a
   specific question about Ada. For example, the following kind of
   question *is* appropriate: "In [choose_a_language] I can do
   [choose_a_feature]. How would I go about doing this in Ada?"

   Further, if you are going to compare programming languages, please
   note "Nebbe's rule":

     If you can't think of a least one area where a language is better
     than your preferred language then you probably aren't competent to
     comment on it.


3.9: I just saw a very anti-Ada post that I think is definitely wrong. Why
didn't anybody post a response to it? Should I?

   Ada apparently gets more than its share of attacks, probably due to
   its unique origins, and the fact that it is a requirement for some
   government software. For the same reasons as in the preceding
   question, PLEASE refrain from posting a response to these, unless you
   feel there is something of *significant* importance that you can
   contribute. Posts containing factual corrections are OK, but posts
   like "Well, I've used Ada on many projects, and all have been very
   successful" accomplish nothing. If you are really dead-set on driving
   your point home to the poster, you can do it via e-mail.


3.10: I very strongly agree/disagree with the Ada mandate. Should I
praise/criticize it?

   First, it is a fact that there is an Ada standard, on which the US
   DoD is aligned (the so-called "mandate"). No shouting match will
   change that. Second, don't believe rumors (about the mandate, its
   withdrawal, its being ignored, etc.) you read in comp.lang.ada, unless
   you have reasons to (i.e. you know the author is trustworthy, or the
   author provides references which you can check, and which you have
   checked yourself at least a couple of times.)

   For your information, here is the text of "Public Law 101-511 Sec
   8092":

     Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, after June 1, 1991,
     where cost effective, all Department of Defense software shall be
     written in the programming language Ada, in the absence of special
     exemption by an official designated by the Secretary of Defense.

    What about discussing the US Ada mandate?

   If you want to argue either for or against US Government Ada policies
   please restrict your postings to "usa" (field "Distribution:").
   Remember that Ada is an international standard, but the US mandate is
   not an international issue.

   Praise of the mandate is usually based on the ideas that a) it is
   better to have one language than 1500 obscure, proprietary languages
   for all DoD-owned non-COTS systems, and b) Ada is a good software
   engineering language, especially when it comes to maintenance.

   Criticism of the mandate is usually based on the ideas that a) a good
   language should not need a mandate (which ignores the fact that before
   standardizing on Ada the DoD had to maintain for 20+ years software
   written in 1500 obscure, proprietary programming languages--which is
   hard and costly), b) the mandate is mostly ineffective, since either
   it is ignored, or too many waivers are granted, or none is necessary
   (a policy issue which will in all likelihood NOT be resolved by
   discussions on comp.lang.ada), and c) no programming language is the
   most appropriate for every problem (true, but
   irrelevant--standardizing on a single good language for all DoD
   development and maintenance is practical, economical, and much better
   than not standardizing at all).

   Finally, whenever you see a message criticizing the Ada language (or
   Ada companies) for losing completely both in the market and under the
   mandate, check the facts for yourself. For the most part, the Ada
   mandate is enforced; in many critical, commercial systems, Ada is the
   language of choice and its adoption a success; in the slowly-changing
   competition of programming languages, FORTRAN and COBOL dominate, and
   Smalltalk, C++, Eiffel, and Ada are all slowly growing. Ada is
   (finally, and we hope seriously) penetrating academia. There is a GNU
   Ada 9X compiler available. And remember that Ada 9X will be the first
   standardized object-oriented programming language.

   If you have some new, additional facts, with approriate references so
   that everyone can check for himself, then posting on a mandate-related
   issue is OK. If NOT, then refrain from posting. PLEASE, if someone
   starts a non-factual discussion, the best policy is simply to ignore
   it or, if you have to, you may reply by private e-mail. Try to hold
   the same standards as you would in discussing problem-solving with the
   programming language itself, and put your information in a way which
   encourages positive action; criticism of inefficiency and/or
   ineptitude is fine, as long as it is honest, documented, and polite.


3.11: Why shouldn't I cross-post my comp.lang.ada messages to other
comp.lang.* newsgroups?

   The huge majority of the comp.lang.ada messages are Ada specific, and
   many are from people supporting Ada, so that all threads developing on
   c.l.a end up dealing with Ada.

   Cross-posting should be used with caution and careful thought, for
   various reasons:
     * First, avoid annoying readers of other newsgroup with irrelevant
       Ada messages. If you expect to successfully proselytize by
       cross-posting into newsgroups dedicated to other programming
       languages, think twice! Note that if you are replying to a
       cross-posted article, it is your responsibility to pare down the
       newsgroup lists ("Newsgroups: c.l.a,xyz,xyz" and "Followup-to:
       c.l.a,xyz").

     * Second, the subject line ("Subject: xyz") should be relevant to
       all cross-posted groups (e.g. if the thread originated in c.l.a
       and then is cross-posted, think about the message--if there is
       any--explicitly carried over by the subject; some people read the
       subject line only).

     * Finally, it is good and polite practice to mention explicitly in
       the text of a cross-posted article that it is cross-posted and
       where you would like followup articles to go.


   Exaggerated cross-posting is in the same category as junk mail:
   negative publicity.


3.12: I don't have FTP service on the host where I have an account. Is there
any other way I can access FTP sites?

   If you are not connected to the Internet but do send and receive
   email from the net, you can use an "ftp by mail" agent, such as
   ftpmail, which is provided by DEC's Western Research Labs (DECWRL).
   The mail server may be reached by sending a mail message to
   uucp!decwrl!ftpmail or [e-mail] .

   Complete instructions for using ftpmail may be retrieved with a
   message to the above address with subject "ftpmail" and the single
   word "help" as the text of your message. Example query:

To: [e-mail]
Subject: ftpmail

help


3.12.1: The AJPO host has a special e-mail service for FTP.

   The AJPO host, ajpo.sei.cmu.edu, will provide mail-server
   capabilities on an experimental basis. The available services provided
   by this automatic mail server are: services, Re, help, info, man,
   directory, and file-request. To request a service, send e-mail to
   "[e-mail]" and place its name in the Subject line of
   the mail message, followed by any needed parameters. The mail server
   will respond to your request with either the information you requested
   or an error message.

   The following are common examples on how to request services from the
   AJPO host mail server:

----------------------------------------------------------------
1) To get "help" --

To: [e-mail]
Subject: help

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

2) To get "man" pages of a particular service, such as
"directory" --

To: [e-mail]
Subject: man directory

This service takes as a parameter the name of a service, and
returns a manual page on that service.

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

3) To get a "directory" listing of the AJPO anonymous FTP area
(/public) --

To: [e-mail]
Subject: directory

The "directory" service takes as an optional parameter a file or
directory name, and returns the results of an "ls -l" on that
parameter.  For example, to get a listing of the
/public/compiler directory you would submit a message with the
Subject of:

Subject: directory compiler

The filename pattern may include wildcards as defined by the C
shell.  For example, to get a listing of the /public directories
beginning with "p" you would submit a message with the Subject
of:

Subject: directory p*

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

4) Use "file-request" to get /public/README file --

To: [e-mail]
Subject: file-request README

The "file-request" service takes as an optional parameter a
filename, and will return the contents of the file.  Text files
are returned verbatim, while binary files are encoded via the
Unix "uuencode" command.  Large files (greater than 1000 lines
long) will be split into multiple mail messages.  For example,
to get the file "README" in the /public/compiler directory you
would submit a message with the Subject of:

Subject: file-request compiler/README

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

Below is a sample response to a "help" request.

From: FTP Mail Server
Message-Id:
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: help
In-Reply-To:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

You have sent electronic mail to the Ada Joint Programs Office
automatic mail server.  This server is based on the
ServiceMail(tm) Toolkit from Enterprise Integration Technologies.

In general, you may request a service by placing its name in the
Subject line of a mail message, followed by any needed
parameters.  The mail server will respond to your request with
either the information you requested or an error message.

Here is a brief description of the available services:

services:     This service returns a list of the available
              services.

Re:           This service discards all messages with "Re:" in
              the subject line.  This is to prevent mail
              loops.

help:         This service returns this help message.

info:         This service returns this help message.

man:          This service takes as a parameter the name of a
              service, and returns a manual page on that
              service.

directory:    This service takes as an optional parameter a
              file or directory name, and returns the results
              of an "ls -l" on that parameter.  The root of
              the file structure is the AJPO anonymous FTP
              area.

file-request: This service takes as an optional parameter a
              file name, and will return the contents of the
              file.  The root of the file structure is the
              AJPO anonymous FTP area.  Text files are
              returned verbatim, while binary files are
              encoded via the Unix "uuencode" command.  Large
              files (greater than 1000 lines long) will be
              split into multiple mail messages.

Try 'man ' to get more information on a particular
service.  Please report bugs and other problems to
[e-mail].


     _________________________________________________________________


4: Compilers


4.1: Is there a list of validated Ada compilers?


   Yes, indeed, there is. The latest list can be retrieved by anonymous
   FTP. It is in ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/compiler/val-comp.txt (a
   PostScript version is also available in
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/compiler/val-comp.ps). If the list is
   updated during the month, the previous one is replaced.


4.2: Is there a public-domain/free/shareware Ada compiler or interpreter?

   There ARE free Ada systems, and there is a choice: Ada/Ed for Ada 83,
   and GNAT for Ada 9X.

   (Strictly speaking these are NOT "public-domain". They are
   "free"--under copyright conditions known as "GNU Copyleft". In short:
   there is no warranty, and you are allowed to copy, modify, and
   distribute them; but you can't charge anyone for the software itself,
   and if the software (necessarily including source code) is further
   distributed, it must be done under the same conditions--i.e. copyable,
   with sources and modifications, available to everyone else, etc.)


    4.2.1: Ada/Ed -- An Interpreter for Ada 83

   Ada/Ed is available for PCs, Unix-based machines, Amiga, and Atari
   systems. The Ada/Ed interpreter for Ada 83 is available from the New
   York University host, in directory ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/adaed
   (Internet address 128.122.140.24). There you will find a version for
   UNIX-based machines, and a version for 386/486 DOS machines.

   Ada/Ed is a translator-interpreter for Ada. It is intended as a
   teaching tool, and does not have the capacity, performance, or
   robustness of commercial Ada compilers. Ada/Ed was developed at New
   York University, as part of a long-range project in language
   definition and software prototyping. The project produced the first
   validated translator for Ada, in the form of an executable definition
   of the language written in SETL. The SETL system served as design
   document and prototype for the C version.

   Ada/Ed was last validated under version 1.7 of the ACVC tests.
   Therefore it is not currently a validated Ada system, and users can
   expect to find small discrepancies between Ada/Ed and currently
   validated compilers.

   Apart from the 100-odd tests of ACVC 1.11 that Ada/Ed currently fails,
   the major deficiency of the system is that, being an interpreter, it
   does not implement most representation clauses, and thus does not
   support systems programming close to the machine level.


    4.2.2: GW-Ada/Ed -- a souped-up version of Ada/Ed for 386/486 DOS and
    Macintosh machines

   GW-Ada/Ed is available from the PAL, by anonymous FTP; it is in
   directory
   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/languages/ada/compiler/adaed/gwu. The
   files are located in subdirectories "dos" and "mac".

   This project was sponsored by The George Washington University, and in
   part by the United States Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).

   This distribution contains the executables for GWAda, which consists
   of the NYU Ada/Ed translator/interpreter system together with an
   integrated editor developed by Prof. Arthur Vargas Lopes of the
   Pontifical University at Porto Alegre, Brazil. Lopes began his work on
   GWAda while he was a doctoral student at The George Washington
   University. There is also in the DOS version a very nice extended
   runtime facility, with interesting kinds of source tracing.

   GWAda is being freely distributed at no charge. In the near future the
   developers will make the source code available under the GNU General
   Public License. Source code is not being provided because the system
   is still in the developmental stage. Source code for Ada/Ed itself is
   available from NYU (see above) and from PAL (see questions 9.1 and
   9.3).

   Note that under DOS you do not have to use the GWAda integrated
   environment, but can execute the various parts of NYU Ada/Ed from the
   DOS command line, as described in the NYU instructions.

   System requirements:
     * IBM PC Compatible, 386 or 486, running MS-DOS or PC-DOS, with at
       least 3.6 MB available extended memory, and at least 5 MB free
       hard-disk space.

     * Mac with a 68030 or 68040 processor, System 7, with at least 4 MB
       of RAM, and around 10 MB free hard-disk space.


    4.2.3: GNAT, The GNU NYU Ada Translator -- An Ada 9X Compiler

   GNAT is available from the New York University host, in directory
   ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat. There are versions for UNIX-based systems
   (Sun, DEC, IBM, Next, ...), and versions for DOS, OS/2, and NT 386/486
   systems. Usually the latest version is made available for both Sun
   SPARC (SunOS 4.1) and OS/2 systems.

   It is also available in the Public Ada Library (PAL -- formerly the
   Ada Software Repository), under directory
   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/languages/ada/compiler/gnat (Internet
   address: 128.252.135.4). A mirror site of the PAL also carries GNAT,
   directory: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/languages/ada/compiler/gnat.

   You can also get a copy from the AdaIC Bulletin Board. But this is a
   dial-up operation (703/614-0215), and since the files sizes are large,
   connect times may be lengthy. The bulletin board is best used as a
   back-up source for those who don't have Internet/FTP access.

      General

   (excerpted from "Free Source Code for GNAT 9X Compiler to be Available
   on Internet", by Robert Dewar and Edmond Schonberg, New York
   University, Ada Information Clearinghouse Newsletter August 1993)

   The Computer Science Department of the Courant Institute of
   Mathematical Sciences at New York University received a contract from
   the Ada 9X Project Office, under the direction of Christine M.
   Anderson, to develop a GNU/Ada system. The work is being cosponsored
   by ARPA and the Ada Joint Program Office.

   The final delivery will be a full Ada 9X implementation with as much
   of the core language and annexes implemented as possible. At final
   delivery, the developers expect to demonstrate to the Ada community a
   reasonably complete and solid implementation of the core language, and
   at least part of the language annexes. This delivery will include full
   sources, and executables for at least the Sun Sparc and PC on OS/2.
   (On PCs, GNAT will need a full 32-bit environment with several
   megabytes of memory.)

   There are a number of official GNAT e-mail addresses:

   [e-mail]
          Send a message to this address to be placed on our external
          mailing list. We send out progress reports, technical reports,
          digests of technical comments and other information.

   [e-mail]
          Send messages to this address for our general consideration.
          Where appropriate, we will digest these comments for
          redistribution to the external mailing list -- unless you
          specifically request that they be considered private.

   [e-mail]
          This address is to be used specifically to report problems with
          the currently available version of the GNAT system. Please be
          as specific as possible in reporting problems. Do not report
          missing features for now!


      OS/2 Version

   The executables and sources for the OS/2 version of GNAT are split and
   compressed into two files, each of which can fit on one 3.5-inch
   high-density diskette. Although it is possible to install GNAT on an
   OS/2 machine on FAT (MS-DOS-compatble) partition, such an installation
   will not be fully functional. In fact, GNAT does not support
   installations on FAT partitions. You will need about 8.5 MB of free
   disk space after you have copied the appropriate files to your hard
   drive. About half of this amount is taken up by the source code.

   In case you want to modify and re-compile GNAT, you will need about 24
   MB of free disk space after you have installed GNAT for OS/2 and
   copied the necessary source files to your hard drive.

      Ports

   Several ports of GNAT have been produced by volunteers for a number of
   additional platforms (e.g. SPARCStations Solaris 2.1, i386/i486 Linux,
   DECstation (MIPS chip) Ultrix, DOS, SCO Unix). Users should allow time
   for the volunteers to catch up with the new releases.

   Note: The DOS version requires installation of DJGPP, DJ Delorie's
   port of GCC, GNU loader (ld), and GNU assembler (as) to DOS. DJGPP
   also includes the GO32 memory extender, which works with both VCPI and
   DPMI standards, which allows working in a Microsoft Window. There is
   information on DJGPP stored together with GNAT.


4.3: What cheap (<500$) Ada compilers are available?

   What follows is absolutely *not* exhaustive, but inexpensive
   compilers are available, and some vendors offer educational discounts
   or free programs for educational sites. Among those offering
   educational discounts are DDC-I, Encore, Harris, IBM, Irvine Compiler,
   PSS, Rational, R.R., Tartan, TeleSoft (now part of Thomson Software
   Products), and Thomson Software Products (ex-Alsys).

   Rational: Rational provides free software (Rational Apex) to
   accredited educational institutions, including military academies, in
   the United States and Canada. This is under its Software Engineering
   for Educational Development (SEED) program. To receive information on
   the program, send your contact information via e-mail to
   [e-mail].

   Rational also offers OpenAda for $99. (Rational Software Corporation,
   2800 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95051-0951; tel:
   1-800-RAT-1212)

   R.R. Software: R.R.'s Janus/Ada Professional Development System --
   80386 MS-DOS -- regularly goes for $500. (R.R. Software, P.O. Box
   1512, Madison, WI 53701; contact: Randall Brukardt 608/251-3133;
   e-mail: [e-mail])

   Thomson Software Products (US pricing only): FirstAda for 286 DOS is
   $595. It will run on 286 and higher, and will generate applications
   for any x86 PC. Comes with a full toolset. Thomson Software Products
   does run specials on it periodically. Call Pat Michalowski at
   619/457-2700 for more info.

   Thomson Software Products offers the same compilation system for $144
   to qualified educational institutions under its LEAP program. The
   program also offers substantial educational discounts on other Thomson
   Software Products products, as well as site license arrangements.
   Contact Kathy Ruggiero at 617/270-0030 for more info.


4.4: Is there an Ada compiler for common machine X/common operating system Y?

   There are hundreds of Ada compilers available on the market. Some
   answers for Frequently Asked Compilers are listed below. If your
   specific question is not answered here, check the comprehensive list
   of validated Ada compilers (see 4.1).


    4.4.1: For the Macintosh

   Rational sells a compiler with a Toolbox binding and MPW 3.2. It has
   one limitation for large programs: Packages which contain more than
   32K bytes of data will compile, but not link. It works with System 7,
   and has been reported both as working and not-working on PowerPCs
   (maybe due to a problem with Inits). The interpreter GW/Ada (see
   question 4.2.2) works on all Mac architectures.


    4.4.2: Native compilers for OS/2

   There are several good fully validated compilers. E.g. Thomson
   Software Products (ex-Alsys) has one, and has a partial Ada 9X
   compiler for Windows; RR Software specializes in the Intel x86
   architecture (AETECH repackages and distributes their compilers as
   IntegrAda) -- and they advertise a partial Ada 9X compiler. GNAT is
   available for OS/2.

Archive-name: computer-lang/Ada/comp-lang-ada/part2
Comp-lang-ada-archive-name: comp-lang-ada/part2
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 17 February 1995
Last-posted: 19 January 1995

                                 comp.lang.ada
                       Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is part 2 of a 3-part posting.
Part 3 begins with question 9; it should be the next posting in this thread.
Part 1 should be the previous posting in this thread.


4.5: How can I contact Ada compiler vendors?

   Note: The AdaIC's Validated Compiler List (see 4.1) now contains--at
   the end of the list--addresses, including e-mail, for compiler-vendor
   points of contact. Here is a non-exhaustive list (possibly
   out-of-date, for the moment) of email and phone contacts for questions
   and/or sales.

Alsys: see Thomson Software Products

Convex
  questions
    [e-mail] (Brian Allison)
    Tel: [phone]

Cray
  questions
    [e-mail] (Dave Thersleff)
    Tel: [phone]
  sales
    [e-mail] (Sylvia Crain)
    Tel: [phone]

DDC-I
  sales
    [e-mail]
    Tel: [phone]
    Tel: [phone]

Green Hills Software Inc.
  questions
    [e-mail]
  sales
    [e-mail] (Eric Schacherer)
    Tel: [phone]

Harris
  questions
    [e-mail] (Jeff Hollensen)

IBM/Ada
  questions
    [e-mail] (Don Malcho)
    Tel: [phone]

Intermetrics
  questions
    [e-mail] (Mike Ryer)

Irvine Compiler Corp (ICC)
  questions
    [e-mail]

OC Systems Inc.
  questions
    Email: [e-mail]
  sales
    Tel: [phone]
    Fax: [phone]

Rational Software Corporation
  sales
    [e-mail]
    Tel: [phone] or (800) RAT-1212

R.R. Software
  [e-mail] (Randy Brukardt)
  Tel: 800-Pc-Ada-4u (or: 800-722-3248)

Tartan
  questions
    [e-mail]
    Tel: [phone] (ext 150)
  sales
    [e-mail]
    Tel: [phone] or [phone]

TeleSoft
  questions
    [e-mail]
    (Note that TeleSoft is now part of Thomson Software Products.)
    Tel: [phone]
  sales
    [e-mail]
    Tel: [phone]

Thomson Software Products (ex-Alsys)
  questions
    [e-mail]
  sales
    [e-mail]
    Tel: [phone] (voice) Pat Michalowski


     _________________________________________________________________


5: Organizations that deal with Ada and Ada issues


5.1: Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO)

   The AJPO is part of the Department of Defense; it facilitates the
   implementation of the DoD's Software Initiative (Ada) throughout the
   Services, and maintains the integrity of the Ada language. (The AJPO
   sponsors the AdaIC.)

   The address is:

Ada Joint Program Office
Defense Information Systems Agency
701 South Courthouse Road
Arlington, VA 22204-2199
703/604-4619 (autovon 664-4619)
fax: [phone]

   The current Director and Deputy Directors are:

   Acting Director
          Donald Reifer

   Air Force Liaison
          Maj M. Dirk Rogers ([e-mail])

   Navy Deputy Liaison
          Joan McGarity ([e-mail]

   Army Deputy Liaison
          MAJ Charlotte Lee ([e-mail])

   DISA Liaison
          David Basel ([e-mail])


5.2: Ada Information Clearinghouse (AdaIC)

   The Ada Information Clearinghouse (AdaIC) provides a full spectrum of
   information on Ada to anyone interested in finding out more about the
   programming language. IIT Research Institute operates the AdaIC for
   the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO).

   The address is:

Ada Information Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 46593
Washington, DC 20050-6593
1-800-AdaIC-11 (232-4211), 703/685-1477; fax: [phone]


   The AdaIC publishes a quarterly newsletter, which contains current
   news, Ada conference reports, announcements from the AJPO Director,
   and articles on projects using Ada. If you would like to receive a
   copy of the AdaIC newsletter, please call and request a subscription.
   There's no charge. The AdaIC also regularly updates and publishes more
   than 70 separate information flyers. Flyer topics include:
     * Ada Validated Compilers
     * Ada News and Current Events
     * Ada Usage
     * Ada 9X Project
     * On-line sources of Ada Information
     * Ada Bibliographies
     * Ada Compiler Validation and Evaluation
     * Resources for Ada Education and Training
     * Ada Software, Tools, and Interfaces
     * Ada Regulations, Policies, and Mandates
     * Ada Historical Information


   One of the most commonly requested flyers is the Validated Compilers
   List. This list, which is updated monthly, contains Ada compilers that
   have been validated by the AJPO. For the most current information on
   validated Ada compilers, contact the AdaIC.

   Practically all AdaIC flyers are available via anonymous FTP from the
   AJPO host, in directory ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public.


5.3: Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Ada (ACM
SIGAda)

   SIGAda's bimonthly publication is Ada Letters.

   Price for non-members: $55 (Annual ACM membership dues, $82; students,
   $25).

   Otherwise it costs $20 per year to ACM members; $10 per year to ACM
   student members.

   The address is:

Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
212/869-7440

   SIGAda also has a number of committees and working groups on a variety
   of topics.


5.4: ISO Working Group 9 (ISO-IEC/JTC1/SC22/WG9, WG9 for short)

   This is a working group that deals with Ada within the International
   Standardization Organization. Within WG-9, are several Rapporteur
   (rap) groups:
     * ARG: Ada Rapporteur Group -- Comments and Interpretations
     * CRG: Character Rapporteur Group -- International Character Sets
     * IRG: Information Systems Rapporteur Group -- Decimal Arithmetic
     * NRG: Numerics Rapporteur Group -- NUMWG packages
     * RRG: Real-Time Rapporteur Group -- ExTRA
     * SRG: SQL Interfaces Rapporteur Group -- SAMeDL
     * URG: Uniformity Rapporteur Group -- Portability through Uniformity
     * XRG: Ada 9X Rapporteur Group


   Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG):
          This is the group responsible for evaluating comments on the
          Ada standard. Officially, the group is only developing a
          technical report addressing comments and questions concerning
          the ISO standard for Ada. (Arcane ISO rules prevent the ARG or
          WG9 from issuing "official" interpretations of a standard.) In
          practice, when a response to a comment is approved by WG9, the
          response is taken into account by the Ada Validation Office and
          affects the test suite. The documents containing comments on
          the standard and ARG responses are called "Ada Commentaries"
          and are given numbers of the form AI-ddddd/vv, where vv is a
          version number.

          Comments and questions about the Ada standard should be sent to
          [e-mail], using the format specified in the
          Ada standard. You can receive e-mail notification of an update
          to a commentary (optionally including the text of the
          commentary) by sending a request to
          [e-mail]. Commentaries are generally
          updated only a few times each year. The text of all
          commentaries is available by anonymous FTP from the AJPO site
          in the account public/ada-comment. A detailed discussion of ARG
          procedures and the format of commentaries can be found in the
          ada-comment account in the file arg-procedures.doc. A
          reformatted copy of the Reference Manual that includes
          WG9-approved commentaries is available from Karl Nyberg
          ([e-mail]).

   Uniformity Rapporteur Group (URG)
          Responsible for evaluating Uniformity Issues (UIs). UIs
          specify/recommend specific choices for the compiler
          implementor, where the language permits implementation freedom.
          The "canonical example" is UI-8, on integer types. This UI
          recommends that integers be at least 32 bits, and provides
          names for the other predefined integer types. The goal of the
          URG and the UI's is to further Ada portability by providing
          uniform implementations of implementation-dependent features
          commonly used by Ada applications.


     _________________________________________________________________


6: Tools


6.1: Is there an Ada-mode for Emacs?

   There are, in fact, 4 Ada modes for Emacs!
     * the most recent one, available by FTP, is in
       ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat/emacs-ada-mode.

       This is still work under development but it is already quite
       usable. The main features are:
          + TAB ---> indent (almost always correctly)
          + compile and parse the errors (with the cursor at the right
            line AND column)
          + highlight keywords and comments
          + create skeletons for all Ada constructs (both 83 and 9x)
          + goto next (previous) subprogram/package/task
          + goto beginning of syntactic construct
          + name completion (when it is a subprogram defined in the file)
          + untabify, remove trailing spaces automatically before saving
          + C-c TAB ---> format subprogram specs in GNAT style
          + and much more to come...
   The 2 main developers are Markus Heritsch (who works under the
       direction of Franco Gasperoni at ENST, Paris) and Rolf Ebert
       (Munich, Germany).

     * a simple ada-mode shipped as part of the emacs distribution (note:
       it seems it doesn't work correctly);

     * a more elaborate one from Steven D. Litvintchouk of Mitre Corp
       called electric-ada (available from?--NO INFORMATION); and

     * gnu-ada mode. Here is a small description of the features of this
       mode:

        Compile programs within emacs
                Run compiler as inferior of Emacs, and parse its error
                messages. NOTE: I believe that this feature will only
                work with VADS, but it might have been tailored to work
                with other compilers.

        Ada dired
                It supplies a form of dired that helps manage the VADS
                environment, and it adds ADA vads commands into ada mode.
                Unlike a previous dired-ada implementation, this version
                uses the existing dired mode functions except where there
                is unresolvable conflict. Thus, this is more like a minor
                mode to dired. Very important because on actual version
                of emacs 19(beta), in fact lemacs (lucid emacs), dired
                has changed and we can no longer use gnu-ada mode :-(

        you can consult the Ada Language Reference Manual (*) during
                parsing error message.
                (*)You can get one in e.g. the Public Ada Library.

        smart indentation
                Tries hard to do all the indenting automatically.
                Emphasizes correct insertion of new code using smart
                templates.

        Smart template commands (bnf)
                This is essentially a bnf processor/language-sensitive
                editor. The next message will give you an ada bnf file
                that you can use within ada-mode to expand nonterminals.
                But you can roll your own grammars (e.g., your design
                grammar or an ADL) and put them in *.bnf files ... The
                BNF rule set is stored as a list of rules.

        debugging Ada programs within emacs
                A facility is provided for the simultaneous display of
                the source code in one window, while using a.db to step
                through a function in the other. A small arrow "=>" in
                the source window, indicates the current line.

        Move from procedure to procedure or package to package

        tags Ada

        and other things ...


   You can find the gnu-ada mode in
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/infoada/gnu as well as in the PAL,
   under directory
   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/languages/ada/swtools/emacs/adamode.


6.2: Are there versions of lex and yacc that generate Ada code?

   The Arcadia project produced the tools aflex and ayacc, both written
   in Ada and producing Ada code. They can be found in directory
   ftp://liege.ics.uci.edu/pub/irus (Internet address: 128.195.1.5,
   128.195.13.1).


6.3: Where can I get a yacc/ayacc grammar to read Ada code?

   A yacc and lex grammar for Ada 83 is available via FTP from the
   comp.compiler archives at primost.cs.wisc.edu and via e-mail from the
   compilers server at [e-mail] .

   A yacc grammar for Ada 9X is available in
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ada9x/rm9x/grammar9x.y

   and a lex grammar for Ada 9X is available in
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ada9x/rm9x/lexer9x.l.


6.4: What is Anna, and where can I get it?

   Anna is a language for formally specifying Ada programs. It extends
   Ada with various different kinds of specification constructs from ones
   as simple as assertions, to as complex as algebraic specifications. A
   whole lot of tools have been implemented for Anna, including:
    1. The standard DIANA extension packages, parsers, pretty-printers.
    2. Semantic checker (very similar to standard semantic checkers for
       programming languages).
    3. Specification analyzer -- this is a tool used to test a
       specification for correctness before a program based on the
       specification is written.
    4. Annotation transformer -- this transforms Anna specification
       constructs into checks on the Ada program that is developed based
       on the specification. This tool is currently in the process of
       being enhanced so that it can handle at least all the legal Ada
       programs in the ACVC test-suite.
    5. Runtime debugger -- The instrumented program output by the
       annotation transormer can be run with a special debugger that
       allows program debugging based on formal specifications.


   All tools have been developed in Ada and are therefore extremely
   portable. Anna has been ported to many platforms, details of which can
   be obtained from the person who handles Anna releases. You can send
   e-mail to [e-mail] for answers to such
   questions. Actually, there is also a mailing list --
   [e-mail]. Send e-mail to the earlier address if
   you want to get on this list.

   One could view Anna and its toolset as a *very* significant
   enhancement of assertions that are provided in languages such as C
   (using the assert statement). The enhancements are in the form of both
   (1) many more high level specification constructs; and (2) more
   sophisticated tool support.

   However, there are those who would not even wish to compare Anna with
   C assertions! :-)

   The Anna tools may be found in directory
   ftp://anna.stanford.edu/pub/anna.


6.5: What is DRAGOON, and where can I get it?

   DRAGOON is a language, implemented as an Ada preprocessor (i.e., it
   generates pure Ada). DRAGOON is truly object-oriented, including
   complete support for multiple inheritance. A very nice feature of
   DRAGOON not found in many OO languages is the concept of "behavioral"
   inheritance. This allows you to keep the concurrent behavior of object
   separated from the object class hierarchy.

   The book by Colin Atkinson, "Object-Oriented Reuse, Concurrency and
   Distribution: An Ada-Based Approach" (ACM Press, 1991, ISBN:
   0201565277), is very well written and describes the language
   succinctly and completely.

   For a copy of the preprocessor, contact:

Mr. Andrea Di Maio
TXT Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A.
Via Socrate, 41
20128 Milan, ITALY
phone: + 39-2-2700 1001


6.6: Where can I get language translators?

   The AdaIC maintains a Products and Tools Database on its bulletin
   board (703/614-0215), and one of the categories is translators. (The
   list of products should not be considered exhaustive; if you wish to
   suggest additions, please contact the AdaIC.) Besides access to the
   database via the bulletin board, you can also call the AdaIC
   (800-AdaIC-11 or 703/685-1477) and ask for a customized search.

    Should I?

   In addition to all the usual caveats, however, it should also be noted
   that translation itself is a controversial issue.

   When a project makes the transition to Ada from some other language,
   one question that arises is whether to translate older code into Ada.
   Among the immediate considerations are how much of the code can in
   fact be translated by a program intended for that purpose, versus how
   much will still require re-coding by hand. And will the translated
   code suffer a significant loss in speed of execution? Further, a
   project must consider whether the translated code will reflect sound
   software engineering and be readily understandable and modifiable. Or
   will the translated code be merely "Fortranized Ada" or "Cobolized
   Ada", or the like, possibly retaining limitations present in the
   earlier code? Portability is also a problem.

   The resolution of such issues will require an understanding of the
   earlier code, an appreciation of the similarities and differences
   between its language and Ada, and an evaluation of the translation
   program under consideration.


6.7: What is ASIS?

   The Ada Semantic Interface Specification is a layered
   vendor-independent open architecture. ASIS queries and services
   provide a consistent interface to information within the Ada Program
   Library created at compile time. Clients of ASIS are shielded and free
   from the implementation details of each Ada compiler vendor's
   proprietary library and intermediate representation.

   ASIS Version 1.1.0 is the latest version of the ASIS83 1.1 (Ada 83) de
   facto industry standard. It differs from the previous ASIS83 Version
   1.1 in errata, clarifications, and two new functions in
   Asis.Declarations (Implicit_Components and
   Implicit_Variant_Components).

   ASIS Version 2.0.0 is the Ada 9x version of ASIS, called ASIS9X. As
   errors, misunderstandings, and clarifications are discovered, the ASIS
   Working Group will release new edited versions of the specification.
   The latest working draft for ASIS is ASIS 1.1.0, dated July 1993.

   Your comments are welcome, if you wish to see replies to your
   comments, please join the e-mail discussion group (discussed below)
   first.


    6.7.1: How can I find out more about ASIS?

   Can I take part in its development? The following electronic mail
   forums now exist for the ASISWG.

   [e-mail]
          technical discussions

   [e-mail]
          high-level non-technical discussions

   To have your email address added to these forums, send e-mail to:

[e-mail]
[e-mail]

   Include your preferred e-mail address, name, telephone number, and
   surface mail address.


    6.7.2: How can I get hold of ASIS?

   ASIS 2.0.0, 1.1.1, and 1.1.0 (along with the earlier version 1.1) are
   available from directory ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/asis.

   If you do not have Internet FTP access, the AJPO host provides
   mail-server capabilities. To get more information about the
   mail-server, send e-mail to "[e-mail]", and address
   your message as:

         To: [e-mail]
         Subject: help

   To get a copy of the /public/asis/README file, address your e-mail as:

         To: [e-mail]
         Subject: file-request asis/README

   To get a "directory" listing of /public/asis/v1.1.0, address your
   e-mail as:

         To: [e-mail]
         Subject: directory asis

   To get any of the various files, e.g.,
   /public/asis/v1.1.1/asis_1.1.1.asc.ps, address your e-mail as:

         To: [e-mail]
         Subject: file-request asis/v1.1.1/asis_1.1.1.asc.ps

   The filename pattern may include the "*" wildcard.

   Files have been compressed into .zip files. On Unix hosts, you can
   uncompress with unzip, and under DOS with PKUNZIP (at least version
   2.04).

     _________________________________________________________________


7: Bindings


7.1: General

   The AdaIC (see question 5.2, above) has a report on "Available Ada
   Bindings". It can be ordered in hardcopy as flyer T82, and it can be
   downloaded from the AdaIC Bulletin Board (703/604-4624) as
   bindings.txt. It is also available by anonymous FTP on the AJPO host
   in ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/dev-tool/bindings.txt.


7.2: POSIX/Ada


    7.2.1: What is the status of the POSIX/Ada work?

   The IEEE approved IEEE Standard 1003.5-1992 in June 1992. This is the
   Ada Binding to the facilities defined in ISO 9945-1:1989/IEEE
   1003.1-1990, the POSIX System Services.

   IEEE Standards Committee P1003.5 is now working on Ada bindings to
   IEEE draft standards 1003.4, Real-Time Extensions and 1003.4a, Threads
   Extensions. Current plans call for an IEEE ballot in October 1993,
   with IEEE approval in September 1995. For more information, contact
   the P1003.5 Chairman, Jim Lonjers ([e-mail],
   805/987-9457).


    7.2.2: How can I get a copy of POSIX/Ada?

   You can buy a copy of the standard from the IEEE. The order number is
   "SH 15354", and the mailing address is "IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes
   Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331". They will accept credit-card orders
   at 1-800/678-4333. The cost is $62.50 + $5.00 s/h ($43.75 + $4.00 s/h
   for IEEE Members).


    7.2.3: Is it available via FTP?

   Current IEEE policy prohibits electronic distribution of IEEE
   standards. Proceeds from the sale of IEEE standards help support the
   IEEE standards program. However, The POSIX P1003.5 committee has been
   able to work out an arrangement with the IEEE to make the POSIX/Ada
   package specifications available for distribution via e-mail and
   anonymous FTP from directory
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/dev-tool/POSIX. The AJPO files are
   also mirrored at the PAL.


7.3: How do I interface X Window System with Ada?

   This question turns out to be pretty darn hard to answer easily.
   There are at least three variables that need to be filled:
    1. platform where you are going to be running.
    2. compiler you would like to use.
    3. level/flavor of X you would like to run (e.g., just need bindings
       to Xlib, want Openlook as opposed to Motif, etc).


   Once you fill all three of the above, then you can start to get
   answers. In order to keep the answer brief, companies that offer such
   products are simply listed, along with locations where free versions
   are available.

   Before giving you the list, a little history is in order. The first
   Xlib bindings that were publically available were done by SAIC for
   STARS. This implementation had many bugs, but it was there, and it was
   free. This version was eventually withdrawn from the STARS repository,
   and has now been replaced with a better one. In addition, SAIC has
   done an Xt implementation based on these Xlib bindings (also for
   STARS). NOTE: the above description may well be inaccurate,
   corrections are welcome.

   Now, for the list:

First off, there is a pretty complete list of available bindings
for X as well as other stuff at the AdaIC.
FTP Location:

ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/dev-tool/bindings.txt

Free versions:
STARS: bindings to Xlib and Xt.  Available on
source.asset.com.
Note: the ASSET host no longer takes anonymous FTP.  To
request an account, contact: [e-mail]

Non-free versions:
SERC: bindings to Xlib/Xt/Motif
contact: well![e-mail] (Scott Cleveland)

Verdix: bindings to Xlib/Xt/Motif
(Note that bindings to Xview are included with the SunAda Sun4 compiler)
contact: [e-mail] (Paul Moskowitz)

ATC: bindings to Xlib/Xt/Motif
contact: ???

TeleSoft (now part of Thomson Software Products, ex-Alsys):
bindings to Xlib/Xt/Motif (TeleWindows)
(Note that bindings to Xview are included with the TeleSoft Sun4 compiler)
contact: [e-mail]

X-based GUI (Graphical User Interface) Builders:
Objective (OIS): Screen Machine
contact: Phil Carrasco (703/264-1900)

TeleSoft (now part of Thomson Software Products, ex-Alsys): TeleUSE
contact: [e-mail]

EVB Software Engineering, Inc. : GRAMMI
contact : [e-mail]
        or [e-mail] with subject "send grammi"

Sun Microsystems: DevGuide
contact: ???

SERC: UIL-to-Ada code generator
(not really a GUI-builder, but works with several builders to
generate Ada instead of other languages).
contact: well![e-mail] (Scott Cleveland)


     _________________________________________________________________


8: Is there a list of good Ada books?

   Just for a list of texts, etc. (no evaluations or recommendations),
   you might take a look at
   ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/public/ed-train/adabooks.txt.


An Annotated Sampling of Ada-Oriented Textbooks

November 1994

Michael B. Feldman
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
[phone] (voice)
[phone] (fax)
[e-mail]

(with contributions from Jack Beidler, Duane Jarc, Suzanne Pawlan Levy,
Mathew Lodge, and David Weller, as indicated by their initials following
their reviews)

As chair of the SIGAda Education Working Group, and a denizen of the
Internet newsgroups, I am often asked to give references for "Ada
textbooks." This list responds to these many queries.

The textbooks in the Group 1 are written especially for students without
programming experience, who are learning Ada as their first language.
Most of these can also cover at least part of a typical CS2-level
course. The books in Group 2 use Ada as their language of
discourse but are "subject-oriented:" data structures, file structures,
compilers, comparative languages. The remaining books in Group 3 are
either "Ada books" focusing on the language features or more general
books that use Ada, at least in part, but do not fit obviously into a
standard curriculum "pigeonhole."

I invite you to add to the list. Please write your annotated entry in
the form I have used here and write or e-mail it to me. I will include
it in my next version and credit you as a co-compiler of the list.

Disclaimers: I wrote two of the texts listed here; I hope the
annotations are impartial enough. And any annotated bibliography is
selective and opinionated. Your mileage may vary.

Group 1: Books Suitable for a First Course in Programming

Bover, D.C.C., K.J. Maciunas, and M.J. Oudshoorn.
Ada: A First Course in Programming and Software Engineering.
Addison-Wesley, 1992. ISBN 0-201-50992-X
  This work is, to our knowledge, the first Ada book to emerge from
Australia, from a group of authors with much collective experience in
teaching Ada to first-year students. A number of interesting examples
are presented, for example, an Othello game. The book is full of gentle
humor, a definite advantage in a world of dry and serious texts. In the
book's favor is the large number of complete programs. On the other
hand, it is rather "European" in its terseness; American teachers may
miss the pedagogical apparatus and "hand-holding" typically found in
today's CS1 books. Generic units are hardly mentioned.

Culwin, F. Ada: a Developmental Approach.
Prentice-Hall, 1992.
  This work introduces Ada along with a good first-year approach to
software development methodology. Much attention is paid to program
design, documentation, and testing. Enough material is present in data
structures and algorithm analysis is present to carry a CS2 course. A
drawback of the book is that the first third is quite "Pascal-like" in
its presentation order: procedures, including nested ones, are presented
rather early, and packages are deferred until nearly the middle of the
book. This is certainly not a fatal flaw, but it will frustrate teachers
wishing a more package-oriented presentation. The programs and solutions
are apparently available from the author.

Dale, N., D. Weems, and J. McCormick.
Programming and Problem Solving with Ada. D. C. Heath, 1994.
ISBN 0-669-29360-1
  This book is inspired by Dale and Weems' very successful Introduction to
Pascal and Structured Design, but it is not simply an Ada version.  Ada's
more advanced capabilities such as exceptions, packages and generic units
are included in this text.  In addition, more than half of the material is
completely new, and the order of the topics is signficantly different.  It
also has more of a software engineering focus than the Pascal version. The
only Ada topics not included in this text are tasks and access types.
Procedures and packages are introduced early.  Each chapter includes case
studies, testing and debugging hints and excellent non-programming exercises
and programming problems.  The text comes with a program disk containing all
the programs given in the book.  In addition, a validated Meridian Ada
compiler with complete documentation is available at low cost to students
using this book. (S. P. L.)

DeLillo, N. J.
A First Course in Computer Science with Ada.
Irwin, 1993. (ISBN 0-256-12538-4)
  This book is a first in the Ada literature: a version comes with an
Ada compiler, the AETech-IntegrAda version of Janus Ada. Author, publisher,
and software supplier are to be commended for their courage in this.
The book itself covers all the usual CS1 topics. In my opinion, the order
of presentation is a bit too Pascal-like, with functions and procedures
introduced in Chapter 5 (of 15) and no sign of packages (other than Text_IO)
until Chapter 10. Unconstrained arrays and generics are, however, done
nicely for this level, and Chapter 13 is entirely devoted to a single
nontrivial case study, a statistical package. I wish there were more
complete programs in the early chapters, to put the (otherwise good)
discussion of control and data structures in better context.

Feldman, M.B., and E.B. Koffman.
Ada: Problem Solving and Program Design.
Addison-Wesley, 1992. ISBN 0-201-53364-2
  This work combines the successful material from Koffman's CS1 pedagogy
with a software-engineering-oriented Ada presentation order. Packages
are introduced early and emphasized heavily; chapters on abstract data
types, unconstrained arrays, generics, recursion, and dynamic data
structures appear later. The last five chapters, combined with some
language-independent algorithm theory, can serve as the basis of a CS2
course. A diskette with all the fully-worked packages and examples
(about 180) is included; the instructor's manual contains a diskette
with project solutions.

Savitch, W.J. and C.G. Petersen.
Ada: an Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming.
Benjamin/Cummings, 1992. ISBN 0-8053-7070-6
  This is a straightforward adaptation of the well-known Savitch Pascal
books. Ada is introduced in a Pascal-like order, with subtypes and
packages introduced halfway through the book. This is purely a CS1 book.
The final chapter covers dynamic data structures. There is minimal coverage
of unconstrained array types; generics are introduced at the halfway
point to explain Text_IO, then continued only in the final chapter. The
authors intended this book to provide a painless transition to Ada for
teachers of Pascal; one wishes they had taken advantage of the chance to
show some of the interesting Ada concepts as well. Program examples from
the text are available on disk, but only as part of the instructor's
manual; a solutions disk is available for a fee from the authors.

Skansholm, J. Ada from the Beginning. (2nd ed.)
Addison Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0-201-62448-6
  This book was one of the first to use Ada with CS1-style pedagogy.
There are excellent sections on the idiosyncracies of interactive I/O (a
problem in all languages), and a sufficient number of fully-worked
examples to satisfy students. Generics, linked lists and recursion are
covered at the end; there is no tasking coverage, but one would not
expect this at CS1-level. A very interesting addition is the new
Chapter 14, in which OOP in both Ada 83 and Ada 94 is discussed.
This is an especially lucid explanation of OOP in Ada, and makes a real
contribution because it doesn't just discuss tagged types as a "feature"
of Ada 94, but shows very nicely what is possible in Ada 83 (instead
of just what is _not_ possible), and shows how Ada 94 adds functionality.

Smith, James F., and Thomas S. Frank
Introduction to Programming Concepts and Methods with Ada
McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994 ISBN 0-07-911725-2
  This is a well written and easy to use text.  The book takes a spiraled
approach to CS 1.  The authors do an excellent job integrating Ada into
the book.  They take a very direct approach, especially with an early
introduction to the package concept and the traditional Text_IO package.
Faculty who have taught CS 1 with Pascal should like this book. Instead
of making a big fanfare about Ada features, they simply introduce them
as good support for software development concepts. The authors have
carefully chosen the Ada topics they decided to cover in this book in
order to strike a balance between staying true to the CS 1 course while
presenting enough of the programming language. If you teach CS 1 you
might at least want to get a copy of this text just to look at two
chapters, Chapter 7 and Chapter 14. Seven covers program correctness and
run-time event (exception handling) and fourteen is a beautiful presentation
and example of generic packaging.  Both presentations are done in an
appropriate manner for CS 1. (J. B.)

Volper, D., and M. Katz. Introduction to Programming Using Ada.
Prentice-Hall, 1990. ISBN 0-13-493529-2
  This book uses a heavily "spiraled" approach to Ada, and is designed
for a 2-semester course, covering nearly all of Ada eventually. There
are lots of fully-coded examples, and good pedagogical sections on
testing, coding style, etc. If you like spiraling, you'll like this. The
down side is that you can't find all you need on a given subject in one
place. It's at the other end of the scale from the "Ada books" that
follow the Ada Language Reference Manual (LRM) order.


Group 2: Other Books Intended for Undergraduate Courses

Ben-Ari, M. Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming.
Prentice-Hall 1990. (OS/concurrency) ISBN 0-13-711821-X
  In my opinion, this is the best introduction to concurrency on the
market. Ada notation is used for everything, but the focus is on
concurrency and not on Ada constructs per se. I liked the CoPascal
notation of the first edition better, but this book is still great. A
software disk is promised in the preface; I had to work quite hard to
get it from the publisher, which finally had to express-ship it from
England. The software comes with a tiny Ada-ish interpreter, complete
with Pascal source code, adapted from Wirth's Pascal/S via CoPascal.
There are also some real Ada programs, most of which I've tested and
found correct and portable.

Feldman, M.B. Data Structures with Ada.
Addison Wesley, 1993. ISBN 0-201-52673-5
(CS2/data structures)
  This book is a reasonable approximation to a modern CS2 book: "big O"
analysis, linked lists, queues and stacks, graphs, trees, hash methods,
and sorting, are all covered. The Ada is a bit old-fashioned, especially
the lack of generics; the book was published before compilers could
handle generics. The packages and other programs are available free from
the author. The book is currently under revision with Addison-Wesley and
should appear in 1995.

Fischer, C., and R. LeBlanc. Crafting a Compiler.
Benjamin Cummings, 1988. (compilers) ISBN 0-8053-3201-4
  This book uses Ada as its language of discourse and Ada/CS, a usefully
large Ada subset, as the language being compiled. If you can get the
"plain Pascal" tool software by ftp from the authors, you'll have a good
translator-writing toolset. Skip the Turbo Pascal diskette version,
which is missing too many pieces to be useful. I've used the book since
it came out with both undergrad and graduate compiler courses; it
embodies a good blend of theory and "how it's really done" coding.
Students like it. The authors have recently published a second version,
which uses C as its coding language but retains Ada/CS as the language
being compiled.

Hillam, Bruce. Introduction to Abstract Data Types Using Ada.
Prentice-Hall, 1994. (data structures) ISBN 0-13-045949-6
This is a very readable treatment of data structures presented using Ada
that makes good use of Ada features such as generics.  It contain many
complete programs and packages.  Unfortunately, obvious syntax errors make
it apparent that not all examples have been compiled.  The level of
presentation is somewhere between an elementary, CS 2, data structures
course and an advanced, CS 7, course.  A subset of first eleven chapters
provide the appropriate topics for a CS 2 course, but not the pedagogy
necessary for a course at that level. (D. J.)

Lomuto, N. Problem-Solving Methods with Examples in Ada.
Prentice-Hall, 1987.(algorithms)
  Inspired by Polya's classic How to Solve It, this book can make a nice
addition to an Ada-oriented algorithms course. It makes too many
assumptions about students' programming background to use as a CS1 book,
and doesn't teach enough Ada to be an "Ada book." But it makes nice
reading for students sophisticated enough to handle it. I'd classify it
as similar to Bentley's Programming Pearls.

Miller, N.E. and C.G. Petersen. File Structures with Ada.
Benjamin/Cummings, 1990. (file structures) ISBN 0-8053-0440-1
  Designed for a straightforward ACM-curriculum file structures course,
this book succeeds at what it does. There are good discussions of ISAM
and B-tree organizations. The software can be purchased a low cost from
the authors; it seems to approximate in Ada all those C-based file
packages advertised in programmer-oriented trade publications.

Schneider, G.M., and S.C. Bruell.
Concepts in Data Structures and Software Development (with Ada
Supplement by P. Texel).
West, 1991. (CS2/data structures)
  This work is not, strictly speaking, an Ada book; rather, it is a
solid, language-independent approach to modern CS2. The language of
discourse in the book is a Pascal-like ADT language rather like Modula-2
in style; some examples are coded in legal Pascal. The Ada supplement
makes it usable in an Ada-based course, but the supplement is rather too
terse (100 pages of large type) for my taste, and insufficiently well
keyed to the book chapters. The supplement's effectiveness would be
greatly enhanced by full translations to Ada of a large number of the
book's examples.

Sebesta, R.W. Concepts of Programming Languages (2nd ed.).
Benjamin Cummings, 1993. (comparative languages) ISBN 0-8053-7132-X
  If you've been around for a while, you might remember the late Mark
Elson's 1975 book by the same title. This is similar: a concept-by-
concept presentation, with -- in each chapter -- examples taken from
several languages. I include this work in an "Ada list" because I like its
nice, impartial coverage of Ada. I especially like the chapters on
abstraction and exception handling. The book covers -- comparatively,
of course -- most of the lanuages you'd like to see, including C, C++,
Lisp, Smalltalk, etc., with nice historical chapters as well. The book
is readable; my students like it. Our undergraduate and graduate courses
both use it as a base text.

Stubbs, D.F., and N.W. Webre.
Data Structures with Abstract Data Types and Ada.
PWS-Kent, 1993. (advanced data structures) ISBN 0-534-14448-9
  This work updates and adapts to Ada the material in the authors'
successful data structures texts using Pascal and Modula-2. It is good for a
"heavy" CS2, i.e., one on the theoretical side, or a "light" CS7, i.e. it
is not as theory-oriented as the Weiss work below. More Ada, especially
regarding advanced types, is taught here than in Weiss. Especially
interesting about all the books from these authors is that they have
matched their "big O" performance prediction with tables and graphs
showing actual performance measurements.


Weiss, M.A.
Data Structures and Algorithms in Ada.
Benjamin/Cummings, 1993. ISBN 0-8053-9055-3
  I think this book reaches its intended market -- data structures courses
(CS7) -- rather well with Ada. There's a good mixture of theory and practice
(ADT design, for example), and coverage of new topics like amortized algorithm
analysis and splay trees. A book at this level should not pay too much
attention to teaching a language; rather it should make good use of its
language of discourse. The Ada version does not attempt to teach either the
language or Ada-style software engineering, but shows good understanding of
the language, uses generic packages quite well and focuses on the theory of
algorithms, as a book at this level should. This is the first, and so far
the only, text in Ada for this course.

Group 3: A Selection of Other Ada-Related Books

Barnes, J.
Programming in Ada. (4th edition)
Addison-Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0-201-62407-9
  Barnes' work has been one of the most popular "Ada books." Some students
find it hard to see how the pieces fit together from Barnes' often
fragmentary examples; it is difficult to find complete, fully-worked out,
compilable programs. This just-out fourth edition has a 100-page summary of
Ada 95.

Booch, G.
Software Components with Ada.
Benjamin Cummings, 1987. ISBN 0-8053-0610-2
  This work is an encyclopedic presentation of data structure packages
from Booch's OOD point of view. It is great for those who love
taxonomies. It's not for the faint-hearted, because the volume of
material can be overwhelming. It could serve as a text for an advanced
data structures course, but it's thin in "big O" analysis and other
algorithm-theory matters. The book is keyed to the (purchasable) Booch
Components.

Booch, G. and D. Bryan, with C. Petersen
Software Engineering with Ada. (3rd edition)
Benjamin/Cummings 1994. ISBN 0-8053-0613-7
  Another of the classical "Ada books." Introduces Booch's OOD ideas. Not
for use to introduce Ada to novices, in my opinion; there are some nice
fully-worked case studies but they begin too far into the book, after long
sections on design, philosophy, and language elements. The earlier chapters
contain too much fragmentary code, a common flaw in books that follow the LRM
order. The third edition contains an appendix describing Ada 9X.

Bryan, D.L., and G.O. Mendal. Exploring Ada, Volumes 1.and 2.
Prentice-Hall, 1990 and 1992 respectively. ISBN 0-13-295684 (vol. 1);
ISBN 0-13-297227-1 (vol. 2)
  This is an excellent study of some of the interesting nooks and
crannies of Ada; it sometimes gets tricky and "language-lawyerly."
Volume 2 takes up tasking, generics, exceptions, derived types, scope
and visibility; Volume 1 covers everything else. The programs are short
and narrowly focused on specific language issues. If you like Bryan's
"Dear Ada" column in Ada Letters, you'll like this book. It is certainly
not a book for beginners, but great fun for those who know Ada already
and wish to explore.

Burns, Alan, and Geoff Davies.
Concurrent Programming.
Addison-Wesley, 1993, ISBN 0-201-54417-2
  Solid book covering all aspects of writing concurrent software. Uses
a version of Pascal called FC-Pascal (available for free through the
Internet). The FC means "Functionally Concurrent". It has constructs
that are similar to Ada 9X, and this is by no accident -- the authors
frequently point out that the implementations in FC-Pascal are taken
from Ada 9X's Tasks and Protected Types. Covers lots of low-level problems
by gradually building up from simple examples. Highly recommended for a
Concurrent Programming class. Exercises and Further readings are provided
at the end of each chapter. (D.W.)

Burns, Alan and Wellings, Andy
Real Time Systems and their Programming Languages
Addison-Wesley 1990. (ISBN 0-201-17529-0)
  This is an excellent and unique book. Basic concepts and terminology are
explained before moving on to explain the major aspects of real time design.
"Real world" examples are presented in Ada, Modula-2 and occam 2, though
Ada is clearly the authors' language of choice and gets the most coverage.
Topics covered include reliability and fault tolerance, concurrency,
synchronisation, scheduling, message passing, atomic transactions, resource
control, distributed systems and low-level device control. Efficiency is not
neglected, and Ada support here is particularly strong with detail on the
CIFO package. Several case studies are also presented. The only failing of
the book is that it needs updating to cover Ada 9x and its real-time annex,
Modula-3 etc. However, the basic concepts that the authors convey so clearly
are independent of implementation language. (M. L.)

Cohen, N. Ada as a Second Language.
McGraw Hill, 1986. ISBN 0-07-011589-3
  This book is a quite comprehensive exploration of Ada which
follows the LRM in its presentation order. My graduate students like it
because it is more detailed and complete than alternative texts. It's an
excellent book for students who know their languages and want to study
all of Ada. There are good discussions of "why's and wherefore's" and
many long, fully-worked examples. An anxiously-awaited 2nd edition
covering Ada 95 is in the pipeline.

Gauthier, M. Ada: Un Apprentissage (in French).
Dunod, 1989.
  I found this an especially interesting, almost philosophical approach
to Ada. The first section presents Ada in the context of more general
laguage principles: types, genericity, reusability. The second section
introduces testing and documentation concerns, as well as tasking; the
third considers generics and variant records in the more general context
of polymorphism. For mature Ada students in the French-speaking world,
and others who can follow technical French, this book can serve as a
different slant on the conventional presentations of the language. An
English translation would be a real contribution to the Ada literature.

Gehani, N. Ada: an Advanced Introduction (2nd edition).
Prentice-Hall, 1989. ISBN 0-13-004334-6
  I've always liked Gehani's literate writing style; he knows his
languages and treats Ada in an interesting, mature, and balanced
fashion. This book comes with a diskette sealed in the back of the book,
which is advantageous because the book has numerous nontrivial, fully-
worked examples.

Gehani, N. Ada: Concurrent Programming (2nd edition).
Silicon Press, 1991. ISBN 0-929306-08-2
  This is a less formal, more Ada-oriented presentation of concurrency
than the Ben-Ari work. I use both books in my concurrency course; its
real strength is the large number of nontrivial, fully worked examples.
Gehani offers a nice critique of the tasking model from the point of
view of an OS person. The preface promises the availability of a
software disk from the publisher.

Naiditch, D.J.  Rendezvous with Ada
New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1989. ISBN 0-471-61654-0
  A nice, relatively quick survey of the language for experienced
programmers. Warning: there are not too many complete programs here, at
least at the beginning. But overall, this is a good choice, less overwhelming
than, say, Cohen, for "learning the language" quickly.

Nyberg, K. (editor) The Annotated Ada Reference Manual.(3rd edition)
Grebyn Corporation, 1993.
  This is the definitive work on Ada legalities, because it presents not
only the full text of the LRM but also the official Ada Interpretations
as prepared by the Ada Rapporteur Group of Working Group 9 of the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and approved by
that organization. These commentaries, interleaved with the LRM text,
are promulgated by the Ada Joint Program Office, the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) agent for Ada, in the Ada Compiler Validation
Suite (ACVC). They are thus binding upon compiler developers. I recommend
this book as an essential volume in the library of every serious Ada
enthusiast.

Watt, D.A., B.A. Wichmann, and W. Findlay. Ada Language and Methodology.
Prentice-Hall, 1987. ISBN 0-13-004078-9
  This work presents some interesting programming projects, and the
coverage of design and testing--at the level of a first-year student--is
quite good. The first third of the book concentrates heavily on
classical control and data structures, leaving exceptions, packages and
even procedures until the "programming in the large" material in the
second third. CS2 teachers will find too little concentration on
algorithm analysis. On the other hand, tasking and machine-dependent
programming are covered. Like the Shumate work, this book would make a
suitable introduction to Ada for students with a semester or so of
programming experience; it "jumps in" too quickly to satisfy the needs
of neophytes and is not well-tailored to CS1 or CS2 needs.

Archive-name: computer-lang/Ada/comp-lang-ada/part3
Comp-lang-ada-archive-name: comp-lang-ada/part3
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 17 February 1995
Last-posted: 19 January 1995

                                 comp.lang.ada
                       Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is part 3 of a 3-part posting.
Part 2 begins with question 4.5.
Parts 1 and 2 should be the previous postings in this thread.


9: Resources


9.1: What FTP sites exist that contain information about Ada or Ada source?


   Public Ada Library (formerly Ada Software Repository)
          wuarchive.wustl.edu (Internet address: 128.252.135.4)

          Mirror: ftp.cdrom.com

          European mirror: ftp.cnam.fr (Internet address: 192.33.159.6)

          European CD-ROM mirror: ftp.cs.kuleuven.ac.be in
          pub/Ada-Belgium/cdrom

   Ada-Belgium ftp server
          ftp.cs.kuleuven.ac.be in pub/Ada-Belgium

   AJPO and AdaIC
          ajpo.sei.cmu.edu [mirrored by the PAL, listed above] (Internet
          address: 192.58.107.159)

   ASSET / STARS (Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems):
          source.asset.com (Internet Address: 192.131.125.10)

          Note: the ASSET host no longer takes anonymous FTP. To request
          a free account, contact: [e-mail]


9.2: Reuse


    9.2.1: Are there any free, public-domain, or other general-access software
    repositories that contain Ada source code and information on reuse?

   There are a number of them, among them PAL (the Public Ada Library)
   and ELSA, described below.

    Public Ada Library (formerly Ada Software Repository)

   Formerly the Ada Software Repository (ASR), the Public Ada Library
   (PAL) is a collection of programs, components, tools, general
   information, and educational materials; taking up hundreds of
   megabytes, it contains the source code for hundreds of distinct items
   as documented in its Master Index. Previously housed on the SIMTEL20
   host computer, it is now located at Washington University at St.
   Louis's host (wuarchive.wustl.edu -- which had been a mirror site for
   the ASR). The PAL is available for anonymous FTP, directory:
   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/languages/ada,

   The PAL has its own FAQ, a copy of which is stored in directory
   ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.lang.ada, which stores
   the FAQ files posted to news.answers.

    ELSA (previously AdaNet)

   ELSA is a component of the Repository Based Software Engineering
   (RBSE) Program sponsored by NASA's Technology Utilization Division. It
   is a public-domain reuse library containing value-added software from
   ASR (PAL), STARS, JPL, many educational institutions, and various
   other sources. The non-software information includes relevant research
   papers, standards, and technical reports.

   ELSA also distributes components on floppy disks. All of its services
   are free of charge.

   For more information, contact ELSA Client Service at 1-800/444-1458 or
   [e-mail].


    9.2.2: Is there some sort of database of re-usable Ada software
    components?

   You might want to join ACM SigAda (see question 5.3) in order to
   subscribe to Ada Letters. They publish a list of reusable components
   on an annual basis. The most recent list was in the March/April 1994
   issue (XIV.2). In fact, it is more of a list of lists, in that it
   mentions places that have sets of reusable components. The maintainer
   of the Ada Letters "master list" is [e-mail] (also
   [e-mail]).

   To our knowledge this list is NOT available online. Check also the
   software repositories, mentioned above (question 9.2.1).


9.3: Where can I get Ada benchmark programs?

   In addition to the information below, you may also wish to look at
   the AdaIC flyer "How to Obtain Benchmark Performance Test Suites and
   Results", flyer C15, file benchmrk.txt on the AJPO host
   (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu). (For more on the AdaIC and downloading files, see
   questions 5.2, 9.1, and 9.2.)

    The Ada Evaluation System

   The Ada Evaluation System (AES) may be obtained from the British
   Standards Institute at the following address:

Software Product Services
Software Engineering Department
BSIQA
P.O. Box 375
Milton Keynes MK14 6LL
United Kingdom
Tel: [phone]
UUCP: [e-mail]
(Internet: bsiqa![e-mail])

   As of February 1993, the current version is the DIY-MAPSE-01 version.
   It is available at a cost of 3,000 pounds sterling. BSI also offers a
   validation service at a cost of 24,000 pounds sterling. Principal
   documents are a User's Manual, a Reference Manual, and a Test
   Description Document.

   The Ada Evaluation System (AES) was merged with the Ada Compiler
   Evaluation Capability (ACEC) under a joint agreement between the
   Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom and the Department of
   Defense of the United States that was signed in June of 1991. The
   merged product has been released as the Ada Compiler Evaluation System
   (ACES), which is the latest version of the ACEC.

    The Ada Compiler Evaluation Capability/Ada Compiler Evaluation System

   The Ada Compiler Evaluation System (ACES) may be obtained from:

Data and Analysis Center for Software (DACS)
Attn: Document Dataset Ordering
Kamen Sciences Corporation
P.O. Box 120
Utica, NY 13503-0120
Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]
Internet: [e-mail]

   There are three documents: the User's Guide, the Reader's Guide, and
   the Version Description Document. The total cost for the software (on
   6250-bpi 9-track VMS Backup tape) and documentation is 100 US dollars.


   ACES is also available for downloading via anonymous FTP from the AJPO
   host computer, where it can be found in the /public/aces directory. It
   can also be downloaded from the Public Ada Library (PAL -- see
   question 9.3.1).

    Hartstone Benchmarks

   Electronic-mail requests for Hartstone should be sent to the following
   Internet address: [e-mail] .

   The reply message will contain full details of how to obtain source
   code and documentation by various means, including anonymous FTP.
   There is no charge for the Hartstone source code.

   For people without Internet access, the address to send requests to
   is:

REST Transition Services
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
Phone: [phone]

   Hartstone source code may also be retrieved from the PIWG bulletin
   board. (See below.)

    The PIWG Benchmarks

   The ACM Performance Issues Working Group (PIWG) benchmarks may be
   obtained in one of three ways:
    1. Via anonymous FTP from the ajpo.sei.cmu.edu machine. Users should
       issue the command "ftp ajpo.sei.cmu.edu" and log in using the word
       "anonymous" as the login name and an identifying string (e.g., the
       user's e-mail address) as password. Change directory ("cd"
       command) to the "public/piwg/piwg_11_92" directory and use the FTP
       file-transfer commands to retrieve the files. The README file
       contains information about using the benchmarks.

    2. Via the PIWG bulletin board. Ideally, users should access this
       from a PC (rather than a dumb terminal) using a modem capable of
       sending and receiving at 1200 baud or higher. The number of the
       bulletin board is 412/268-7020. Once connected to the bulletin
       board, users will be able to navigate their way around the system
       using simple menus that the system provides. The point of contact
       for this service is Gene Rindels, 412/268-6728.
    3.

       Via a written request or telephone request to the following
       service:

PIWG Distribution
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
Tel: [phone]
   As of February 1993, the current release of the PIWG suite is the one
       dated 11/92. There is no charge for the PIWG benchmarks.
       Documentation for the PIWG benchmarks consists principally of the
       READ.ME file distributed with the suite and comments in the
       individual test programs and command files. There is also
       additional information about the PIWG suite in the Winter 1990
       special edition of Ada Letters (Vol. X, No. 3, special edition on
       Ada Performance Issues).


9.4: Are there any dial-up BBS systems that deal with Ada?

   (Caveat: Telephone numbers can change without notice. If I find out a
   number doesn't work, it will be noted but the entry will be kept in
   until I'm sure the service has actually been discontinued. If you are
   aware of a better number, please let me know.)

AdaIC BBS
Tel: [phone]
AUTOVON: 664-4624

AdaNet BBS: This is a free service that maintains e-mail
connections for people not on the Internet, an Ada source code
repository, and a selection of other on-line Ada-related
documents.  It is sponsored by NASA.
Call 800/444-1458 to register for access.

Air Force Software Technology Support Center (STSC) BBS
Tel: [phone]
Baud: 2400, 1200, 300
Bits: 8
Parity: None
Stop Bits: 1

ACM SIGAda Performance Issues Working Group
PIWG Ada Benchmarks BBS
Tel: [phone]

Embedded Systems Programming Magazine BBS
Tel: [phone]

Naval Computer Telecommunications Command
Tel: [phone] (DSN 564-7841)

R.R. Software. Inc.
Tel: [phone]
9600 baud max.


     _________________________________________________________________


10: Credits

   The following persons have contributed (directly or indirectly
   through e.g. comp.lang.ada) to the information gathered in this FAQ:
   the Ada Information Clearinghouse--AdaIC [I know, AdaIC is not a
   person; still, they managed the FAQ for about one year], Heddy
   Boubaker, Susan Carlson, Cyrille Comar, Robert Dewar, Patrick Donohoe,
   Herndon R. Elliott, Dave Emery, Don Erway, Michael Feldman, John
   Goodenough, Drew Johnson, Michele L. Kee, Mathew Lodge, "tjmesler",
   Gary Morris, Robb Nebbe, Pascal Obry, Richard O'Keefe, Kurt Olender,
   Manuel Op de Coul, Isaac Pentimaki, Margie Price, Richard Riehle,
   Tucker Taft, Dave Weller, and the maintainer has simply :-) organized,
   polished, or added some information for your satisfaction. The general
   HTML structure of this FAQ was inspired by the WWW FAQ.

     _________________________________________________________________


11: Copying this FAQ

   This FAQ is Copyright 1994, 1995 by Magnus Kempe. It may be freely
   redistributed as long as it is completely unmodified and that no
   attempt is made to restrict any recipient from redistributing it on
   the same terms. It may not be sold or incorporated into commercial
   documents without the explicit written permission of the copyright
   holder.

   Permission is granted for this document to be made available under the
   same conditions for file transfer from sites offering unrestricted
   file transfer on the Internet and from Forums on e.g. Compuserve and
   Bix.

   This document is provided as is, without any warranty.