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comp.lang.ada Frequently Asked Questions part 2 of 2

Effective date: 15 Dec 93

20) 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 the ADABOOKS.HLP file
      on the AdaIC Bulletin Board and in the public/ada-info directory
      on the AJPO host (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu).

      Books for use in class (and others):
      (from [e-mail] (Michael B. Feldman))

      As co-chair of the SIGAda Education Committee, and a denizen of
      the Internet newsgroups, I am often asked to give references for
      "Ada textbooks."  This list responds to these many queries.  It
      is far from exhaustive, merely a selected list of 26 books being
      used successfully in undergraduate computer science courses.

      The six books 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 seven books in Group 2 use Ada as
      their language of discourse but are "subject-oriented:" data
      structures, file structures, compilers, comparative languages.
      The thirteen 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. Maciuas, and M.J. Oudshoorn.
      Ada: A First Course in Programming and Software Engineering.
      Addison-Wesley, 1992.
      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.

      Feldman, M.B., and E.B. Koffman.
      Ada: Problem Solving and Program Design.
      Addison-Wesley, 1991.
      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.
      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 no coverage of unconstrained array types;
      generics are introduced at the halfway point to explain Text_IO,
      then dropped until 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.
      Addison Wesley, 1988.
      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.

      Volper, D., and M. Katz.
      Introduction to Programming Using Ada.
      Prentice-Hall, 1990.
      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)
      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.
      Prentice Hall, 1985 (now distributed by Addison-Wesley).
      (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 1993.

      Fischer, C., and R. LeBlanc.
      Crafting a Compiler.
      Benjamin Cummings, 1988.  (compilers)
      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.

      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)
      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.
      Benjamin Cummings, 1989.  (comparative languages)
      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.  There is a nice
      impartial presentation of Ada along with the others.  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, 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.

      Group 3: A Selection of Other Ada-Related Books

      Barnes, J.
      Programming in Ada.  (3rd edition)
      Addison Wesley, 1989.
      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.  A version is
      available with the entire Ada Language Reference Manual bound in
      as an appendix.

      Booch, G.
      Object-Oriented Design, with Applications.
      Benjamin Cummings, 1991.
      This is a good comparative introduction to the "object-oriented
      (OO)" concept.  The first half gives a balanced presentation of
      the issues in OO Design; the second half gives nontrivial
      examples from Ada, Smalltalk, C++, CLOS, and Object Pascal.  The
      author tries to sort out the difference between object-based
      (weak inheritance, like Ada) and object-oriented (like C++)
      languages.  My only real complaint is that Booch should have
      worked out at least some of his case studies using several
      different languages, to highlight the similarities and
      differences in the language structures.  As it is, each case
      study is done in only a single language.  The good news is that
      the book is remarkably free of the hyperbolic claims one
      sometimes finds in the OO literature.  I think this book could
      be used successfully in a second- level comparative languages
      course.

      Booch, G.
      Software Components with Ada.
      Benjamin Cummings, 1987.
      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.
      Software Engineering with Ada.  (2nd edition)
      Benjamin Cummings 1987.
      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.

      Bryan, D.L., and G.O. Mendal.
      Exploring Ada, Volumes 1 and 2.
      Prentice-Hall, 1990 and 1992 respectively.
      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, A.
      Concurrent Programming in Ada.
      Cambridge University Press, 1985.
      I used this book for years in my concurrency course.  It's
      roughly equivalent to Gehani's book, but its age is showing.
      Cambridge Press is not always easy to get books from, especially
      in the US.

      Cohen, N.
      Ada as a Second Language.
      McGraw Hill, 1986.
      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.

      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.
      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.
      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.

      Nyberg, K.
      The Annotated Ada Reference Manual.  (2nd edition)
      Grebyn Corporation, 1991.
      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.  These commentaries, interleaved with the
      LRM text, have been approved and promulgated by the Ada Board
      and the various standards organizations, and are binding upon
      compiler developers.  I recommend this book as an essential
      volume in the library of every serious Ada enthusiast.

      Shumate, K.
      Understanding Ada.  (2nd edition)
      John Wiley, 1989.
      This would make a CS1 book if it included more overall pedagogy,
      independent of language constructs.  Otherwise it is a nice
      introduction to Ada in fairly gentle steps.  Lots of completely
      worked examples, right from the start.  Doesn't follow the LRM
      order, which is great.

      Watt, D.A., B.A. Wichmann, and W. Findlay.
      Ada Language and Methodology.
      Prentice-Hall, 1987.
      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 and packages 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.

21) 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.

      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.

22) What is the status of the POSIX/Ada work?

      (from [e-mail] (dave emery))

      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).

23) How can I get a copy of POSIX/Ada?  Is it available via FTP?

      (from [e-mail] (dave emery))

      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).

      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 the AJPO host
      (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu).  Look in the public/bindings/POSIX
      directory.  The AJPO files are also mirrored at the PAL.  (See
      29) for more on the PAL, 25) for anonymous FTP.)

24) 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 V15, file benchmrk.hlp.<date> on the
      AJPO host (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu).  For more on the AdaIC and
      downloading files, see questions 14), 15), and 25).

      (from [e-mail] (Patrick Donohoe))

      a.  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.

      b.  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 29).

      c.  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.)

      d.  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).

25) The AJPO host has many Ada information files available for
    downloading by anonymous FTP.  But I don't have FTP service on
    the Internet host where I have an account.  Is there any way I
    can get those files?

      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/ada-info directory you would submit a message with the
      Subject of:

      Subject: directory ada-info

      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/ada-info directory you
      would submit a message with the Subject of:

      Subject: file-request ada-info/README

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

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

      From: FTP Mail Server <[e-mail]>
      Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
      To: [e-mail]
      Subject: Re: help
      In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
      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) Tookit 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 <service>' to get more information on a particular
      service.  Please report bugs and other problems to
      [e-mail].

26) 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.

      The latest working draft for ASIS is ASIS 1.1.0, dated July
      1993.  The ASIS Working Group (ASISWG), under sponsorship of the
      AJPO, intends to evolve this working draft into an ISO standard
      complementing the Ada 9X standard.  The current ASIS working
      draft is based on Ada 83.  Your comments are welcome, if you
      wish to see replies to your comments, please join the e-mail
      discussion group (discussed below) first.

27) How can I find out more about ASIS?  Can I take part in development?

      There is an electronic mail discussion forum for the ASISWG:
      [e-mail]

      This forum is also where announcements of ASISWG meetings will
      appear.  To have your e-mail address added to this forum, send
      e-mail to:

             [e-mail]

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

      A separate, announcements-only, mailing list is available for
      those that do not wish to participate in the technical
      discussions.  That list is [e-mail].
      To have your name added to the info list, send e-mail to:

             [e-mail]

28) How can I get hold of ASIS?

      ASIS 1.1.0 (along with the earlier version 1.1) is avaiable for
      anonymous FTP from ajpo.sei.cmu.edu.  It is available, as a
      series of files, in the public/asis directory.

      If you have Internet FTP access, run your FTP program, your log
      might look something like this:

         $ ftp ajpo.sei.cmu.edu
         Name (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu:you): anonymous
         331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
         Password:[e-mail]
         ftp> cd public/asis/v1.1.0
         ftp> binary
         ftp> get asis_1.1.0.asc
         200 PORT command successful.
         150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for /bin/compress.
         (799382 bytes).
         ....
         ftp> bye

      (The "binary" command is not always necessary.  Some host ftp
      programs drop form-feed characters.  The binary command will
      prevent this behavior.)

      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/v1.1.0/asis_1.1.0.asc.ps,
      address your e-mail as:

         To: [e-mail]
         Subject: file-request asis/v1.1.0/asis_1.1.0.asc.ps

      The filename pattern may include the "*" wildcard.

      All files have been Unix compressed.  If you drop the .Z
      extension in the FTP get command (as in the example above), FTP
      should decompress on the fly.  If you get the .Z file, type
      "uncompress <filename.Z>" before viewing or printing the files.

      The files currently available include:

      asis_1.1.0.ada.Záááááá- full interface, includes all Annexes, in
                              a form suitable for compilation with an
                              Ada 83 compiler

      asis_1.1.0.asc.Záááááá- full interface listing, includes all
                              Annexes, line-numbered, 7-bit ASCII, 369
                              pages

      asis_1.1.0.asc.ps.Zááá- Postscript version of the .asc file

      asis_1.1.0.index.Záááá- line-number/function-name cross-index
                              for interface, 7-bit ASCII

      asis_1.1.0.index.ps.Z - Postscript version of the .index file

      asis_1.1.0.decom.Záááá- just the Data Decomposition Annex
                              interface

      asis_1.1.0.decom.ps.Z - Postscript version of the .decom file

      asis_1.1.0.bnf.ps.Zááá- "ASIS/LRM Crossreference", Ada 83 LRM
                              BNF notation correlated with ASIS
                              interfaces, Postscript.  (Still
                              in progress, final version expected in
                              Q4'93.)

      asis_1.1.0.imp.ps.Zááá- "ASIS: Detailed Semantics and
                              Implementatation Requirements",
                              additional discussion of the ASIS
                              interface semantics, implementation
                              considerations, and requirements, should
                              be read by application programmers as
                              well, PostScript.  (Still in progress,
                              final version expected in Q4'93.)

      Every asis_1.1.0 file larger than about 30Kb is also available
      as a group of smaller files.

29) 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 AdaNet and the Public Ada
      Library.

      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 more
      than 100 megabytes, it contains the source code for
      approximately 355 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.

      The PAL has its own FAQ, a copy of which is stored on the AJPO
      host (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu, in directory public/comp-lang-ada, file
      name public-ada-library).  It is also available on rtfm.mit.edu,
      which stores FAQ files posted to news.answers.

      AdaNet:
      (from [e-mail] (Margie Price))

      AdaNET 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.  Our
      non-software information includes relevant research papers,
      standards, and technical reports.

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

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

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