ADA in Transition (Studies in Computer and Communications Systems, 4)

Ada is in a state of transition: many software organizations are transitioning to Ada - a sure sign that the benefits of Ada have been recognized and that Ada compilers have matured. The language itself, deriving from requirements and technology now over ten years old, needs updating to address new requirements and technology - hardware is more powerful; distributed systems are commonplace; applications are more demanding, more complex and significantly larger; interfacing to standard packages (such as GKS, X-Windows, POSIX) has grown in importance; object-oriented design has been widely adopted; and other languages, such as C and C++ are perceived as being more appropriate. Ada 9X is designed to add to the flexibility and applicability in keeping with the software engineering goals that inspired its original development. This work reviews the current practice in Ada applications, innovative developments in Ada technology, Ada applications in more demanding systems in the safety-critical area, and the Ada 9X revision effort. It should be of interest to both current and intending practitioners of Ada.