The TRI-Ada conference met in Baltimore on 6-11 November 1994. The conference featured two days of tutorials, four days of technical sessions, and four days of exhibitions. There were two keynote addresses. Emmett Paige of the Defense Systems Information Agency (DISA) re-emphasized DoD continued support for Ada as the programming language of choice. Joe Pollizzi of the Space Telescope Science Institute Operations Software Branch discussed his office's approach to software development and maintenance.
The tutorials covered many topics surrounding the issues of building complex software systems including real-time systems, software design techniques, management of software projects, object oriented programming, and process improvement. The most popular tutorials discussed Ada 9X. The hands-on Ada 9X lab allowed people to try the new language on their own.
The best attended sessions covered GNAT and Ada 9X. In a session called GNAT Flies Robert Dewar, the GNAT project lead, Wes Embrey, of Silicon Graphics, and Ralph Crafts, formerly of the Ada Software Alliance, argued the merits of making a free Ada 9X compiler available to the public. Crafts pointed out that a free compiler will inhibit investment in the Ada compiler vendors to refine their products. Dewar countered that GNAT will not suit everyone's needs and that there will still be room for competitive products. Embrey noted that GNAT provides a floor in terms of compiler quality that all compiler vendors must meet or exceed.
There were several key announcements during the conference. Ada Core Technologies (ACT) will validate and provide support for the GNAT Ada 9X compiler. The Ada Resource Association is forming. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved the Ada 9X language standard. The survey results from the Ada awareness survey were briefed. The Special Interest Group for Ada (SIGAda) announced their first awards.
Ada Core Technologies is a company formed to validate and support the GNAT Ada 9X compiler developed by New York University. GNAT is the GNU Ada Translator. (GNAT is a two-syllable word; the G is pronounced as a hard G.) It is an Ada 9X compiler offered through the Free Software Foundation. GNAT is still under development at NYU. Preliminary versions are available via FTP from NYU, the Public Ada Library, and on various Ada CDROMs. GNAT will be distributed free under the GNU Public License. It uses the gcc compiler technology that runs on approximately 200 hardware and operating system combinations. This means that it is very straightforward to port GNAT to any of these platforms. At the conference, it was demonstrated on PCs running DOS, Suns, and Silicon Graphics.
The Ada Resource Association (ARA) Executive Director is Bob Mathis. He is forming ARA into an Ada trade association to educate people, companies, and industries to promote the use of Ada. ISO approved the Ada 9X standard by a vote of 18-0-2. Brazil and South Korea abstained. The date of the standard is based on the document printing date. It is likely to be 1994, but it might slip into 1995. Therefore, we will have either an Ada '94 or Ada '95. The Ada Joint Project Office (AJPO) funded an Ada awareness publicity campaign targeting the automotive, medical instruments, and financial industries. Prior to the advertisements, they conducted a survey to determine the Ada awareness of these industries. After the campaign, another survey will determine the impact of the campaign. The survey showed that commercial software developers value many of the attributes found in Ada (reliability, etc.). However, the survey found that only 68% of the people surveyed were aware of Ada and only 26% of them were familiar with it. Of those who felt familiar with Ada, the majority of them were not aware that Ada provided many of the benefits they look for in a programming language.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group for Ada (SIGAda), the conference organizers, announced their first Ada awards. In the category of contributions to the Ada community, the winners were Emmett Paige, Bill Whitaker, John Goodenough, and John Barnes. Paige has supported Ada for many years in his various jobs in the military and now as the director of DISA. Whitaker is one of the early Ada proponents speaking out on its behalf even before compilers existed to support the language. Goodenough is the principle author of the Ada Compiler Validation Capability. Barnes participated in the original design of the language and wrote the most popular Ada textbook. In the service to SIGAda category, the winners were Mike Kamrad, Mike Feldman, and Gil Myers and the members of the SIGAda Numerics Working Group (NUMW). Kamrad founded and led the Ada Run-Time Environments Working Group that has produced many documents showing how to use Ada in a real-time system. Feldman has been very active promoting Ada in the academic community. NUMWG is the first SIGAda working group to have their products accepted for standardization.
For information on the next TRI-Ada in Anaheim, California on 5-10 November 1995, contact: