Interested about number crunching in Ada
holst
I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
scientific computing, are highly interested in.
What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
(yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.
I applicate your time and help. I hope that, with a push in the right
direction I will be a productive "Ada numerics hacker" in a near
future. :-)
[1] http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00296.TXT
--
Henrik Holst, Sweden
http://www.nada.kth.se/~holst/contact.shtml
Number of productive hours in C++: <zero> of <too many>
Nasser Abbasi
"holst" <henrik...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1187235764.9...@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
I am also interested in this subject. Check Numeric Annex for Ada 2005
http://www.adaic.org/standards/05rat/html/Rat-7-6.html
It seems to have support for Vector and Matrix objects, and the following
operations: (there is a version for real and complex)
function Unit_Vector
function Transpose
function Solve
function Inverse
function Determinant
function Eigenvalues
procedure Eigensystem
function Unit_Matrix
This is an old paper called "Can Ada replace FORTRAN for numerical
computation?" published in 1981 !
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=954262.954264
Dr Dr. Martin J. Stift, uses Ada for Astrophysics
http://archive.adaic.com/docs/flyers/astro.html
Here is some Finite elements code in Ada
http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~squire/cs455_l32.html
Just few days ago, I also wrote short Ada program (even though my Ada is
VERY dusty as I use Mathematica mostly these days and also Matlab and
Maple), I wrote an Ada program to solve a simple second order ode using
finite elements using the new Ada2005 Solve function. I wrote the same code
in Mathematica and then in Ada (and also in Maple). Item #6 on this page
below. It worked great and was very fast as expected. One nice thing about
Ada as always, is that once one gets a clean compile, most likely than not,
the code will run without problems. With other languages/systems, this is
not the case. With the Ada program, once I get a clean compile, that was it.
Using the other systems, I had to spend more time debugging run time errors
and go back fix the code, and run again and fix errors, etc... So the Ada
program was completed much faster than the others at the end.
If you google around, you'll find some Ada package for matrix/vector
operations and more scientific code in Ada (such as fast Fourier transforms,
etc..)
I think Ada as a language is great for numerical and scientific programming.
These were number of discussion on this vs Fortran on the net, check this
one thread: (in which yours truly is guilty of starting :)
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/c4cb2c432feebd9d/98f0d411bf1cf408?lnk=st&q=Ada+Fortran+nasser&rnum=1&hl=en#98f0d411bf1cf408
I just do not think the current Ada 2005 numeric annex contain enough
functionality.
One can always link to BLAS and linpack/lapack libraries (which are written
in Fortran), I just googled around for ada binding to blas, here is link
http://topo.math.u-psud.fr/~sands/Programs/BLAS/index.html
Here is a question I have: Why is there no standard binding to all of these
libraries (blas, linpack, lapack) as part of the standard? or is there? Will
Ada numeric annex be extended to do that? I think the current Numeric annex
is too small.
I have no idea why any one would choose C or C++ over Ada for numerical
work. It is simply beyond my understanding.
I can understand one choosing Fortran over Ada, simply due to the inertia
that Fortran has in this domain, and the huge amount of existing Fortran
code out there. But from a language point of view, I think Ada is definitely
better for numerical work than Fortran, but having a better language is not
enough in the real world.
Nasser
Colin Paul Gloster
2007 23:43:02 -0700, "Nasser Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> posted:
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..] |
| |
|I can understand one choosing Fortran over Ada, simply due to the inertia |
|that Fortran has in this domain, and the huge amount of existing Fortran |
|code out there." |
Unfortunately so, and a reason to be sceptical of supposedly
scientific results obtained numerically. Of course, if someone can not
program well in Fortran and tries to program in Ada, the results would
still be subject to suspicion.
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" But from a language point of view, I think Ada is definitely |
|better for numerical work than Fortran, but having a better language is not |
|enough in the real world. |
| |
|Nasser" |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
True again. Some examples from news:comp.lang.fortran from June 2007
and July 2007 of problems related to using Fortran...
news:qLmdnRLQp_-G4_vb...@eclipse.net.uk
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news:1183085026.1...@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com
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news:2007070314244816807-gsande@worldnetattnet
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news:5evopfF...@mid.individual.net
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news:5f8t9pF...@mid.individual.net
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news:468eae65$0$63187$a726...@news.hal-pc.org
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news:1hzmym2.geqzg2np30c0N%nos...@see.signature
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news:1184354146.6...@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com
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news:1i13nsb.nie62b18grpq6N%nos...@see.signature
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news:1i0vm88.ad0dvommy5v1N%nos...@see.signature
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news:Tdmdnb8ULb0qehLb...@comcast.com
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news:yOUji.292583$p47....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
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news:1i0w2b8.1yg3e511o0w59vN%nos...@see.signature
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news:46902291$1...@news.meer.net
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news:1i09cof.1u7n4sxq7c0cvN%nos...@see.signature
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news:f6strg$kbr$1...@online.de
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news:f6voik$tb$2...@online.de
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news:ldmdnbU9Iec5b-Tb...@comcast.com
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news:1i01upq.bgpxxo1o0duerN%nos...@see.signature
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news:1182983727.4...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com
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news:2007062720040816807-gsande@worldnetattnet
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news:1i0dkkl.1jlhd8111v4wv8N%nos...@see.signature
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news:94Dgi.9102$c06....@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net
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news:M6Dgi.9103$c06....@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net
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news:kNDgi.125855$Sa4.1...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
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news:1182994059.3...@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com
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news:l0Egi.236875$p47.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
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news:4683F0DF...@cits1.stanford.edu
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news:4683f755$0$63178$a726...@news.hal-pc.org
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news:w%Vgi.241677$p47.2...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
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news:46845483...@cits1.stanford.edu
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news:ajZgi.4784$cV.208@trnddc04
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news:1182800003.8...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com
.
Regards,
Colin Paul Gloster
anon
numeric code. The idea that any language such as Ada is better than
FORTRAN will not go over very well. Except for college project or
class assignments, that might give you something to do. But in the
real world, it will not fly. To fully understand this try looking at the
history of SISAL (see below for definition).
There are a number of other High Performance Computing (HPC)
languages that were design back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. But
most have since died off because the lack of funding and previous
work done in FORTRAN and C. LISP has stay around but it role
was altered to mostly non-HPC status.
As for Ada:
First, is the acceptance of Ada. In the world of mathematic FORTRAN
was design to and rules that universe. Non-GNU FORTRAN compilers
are optimized for mathematic while Ada is not. And until that changes
most high performance numeric programmers will not accept Ada in that
world. Outside of FORTRAN they use pure "C" and maybe Lisp. They
also say no to "c++" or any other languages.
Second, most programmer do not want to spend the 100s to 1000s of
hours to translate or convert the libraries that are written in FORTRAN
to any other language including Ada. That is around 50+ years worth of
library source code. And that does not include the time and expense of
getting the copyright and or Software Patents rights to do the
translation. Plus, translating any code from one language to another is
simply boring for most programmers.
Plus, it is a lot easier to write and understand code that is wriiten in
the same language. So, for libraries that are coded in FORTRAN means
the project languages needs to be in FORTRAN. And that's the way HPC
committees like it.
Now, for High Performance Computing projects, well it hard to find open
source projects that deal with mathematic. In todays world, normally
you must be hired and move up to the position in HPC. Jobs in the
fields of Aerospace, Weather, Oceanic Research, and Medical are some
of the primary fields. All of these require knowledge in other fields that
are not commonly known to most programmers. Nornally, it people in
these specialize fields that become programmers and they use what is
commonly use for programming aka FORTRAN or C.
Some of the not so commonly known job fields are Web Servers, and
Neural Networks but these are not driving by higher performance
mathematic, but by Database and File Accessing.
But for the best information on High Performance Mathematic
Computing, check with your local college or university computer
department in a couple of weeks after the fall semester starts. Give
a few days for the school to calm down into the semester routine
before asking.
With the newer computers having dual processors you would think that
most would want to see HPC coding on these desk top. But business
owner are hard to adopt new program or computing paradigms. And
scientists want 16 to 512 processors aka a supercomputer to play with
so to them a dual processors is only building blocks toward that design.
And with a price tag to match they are hard to the average programmer to
buy or build.
As for SISAL (definition):
SISAL is programming language that automatically parallelizes code for
parallel computers, but still works on single processors. it is a
functional language that is hightly efficient for numerical computation.
The Sisal project was based until the early 2000's, at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, but it has been canceled there. You can
still find the source code for SISAL on the internet.
Gautier
the issue of Ada compilers i.r.o. performance for numerics (it exists: at
least, there is a performant one, HP Ada). Now, there are two missing aspects:
- even if you intend to use Ada for number crunching, you don't need to
translate all the large building blocks that are presently in Fortran: Ada
provides the Import and Convention pragmata. If you look at GNAT's sources
behind the new Ada.Numerics.Generic_Real_Arrays, you will see that it cleverly
uses the famous and broadly-tested and possibly non-GNU-compiled BLAS and
LAPACK libraries.
- for small and/or less tested pieces of code, it is relatively easy to
translate them with the f2a tool and the amount of bugs that pop during the
Ada-ptation is not boring at all!
Maybe a kind of Sourceforge repository for Ada numerical code would be a good
idea - any volunteer ? At least, there would be several contributors...
______________________________________________________________
Gautier -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm
NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!
Jerry
> Hi!
>
> I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
> made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
> scientific computing, are highly interested in.
>
> What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
> performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
> (yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
> related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
> Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.
The new numerical aspects of Ada (Annex G.3) are excellent, providing
a number of types and function overloads. The new facilities are
rather basic as far as actual algorithms, but see a very recent
discussion regarding linking to BLAS and LAPACK, if your installation
doesn't already do that. (It seems that BLAS and LAPACK are quasi-
officially recommended --the Ada designers weren't foolish enough to
ignore these venerable numerical packages.)
More broadly as to the appropriateness of using Ada for numerical
work, I personally haven't run across a better solution. I'm a
relatively new user of Ada and am stunned at how well it works for
numerical work. I have used Fortran, Pascal, Matlab/Octave,
Mathematica, Maple, Igor Pro, and some others too obscure to mention
or remember. Ada tops them all for programming. (Mathematica, Maple,
Igor Pro e.g. have many other reasons to recommend them.)
What I (and many others) have done is to write some overloaded procs
and functions to handle vector-matrix things and whatever other
structures your work requires (For example, vectors and matrices of
transfer functions for signal processing and control systems.) With a
few overloaded functions, you can write concise yet clear code that
Matlab aspires to but doesn't entirely succeed at. And you can do
better than Matlab thanks to Ada's strong typing. If you have a vector
x, Matlob will not allow you to compute 1.0/x but Ada will (with an
overload).
I'd be glad to share my collection of overloads that allow mixing
arithmetic between Integers, Long_Floats, Complex, and real and
complex vectors and matrices. I know that there are a lot of
combinations to fully flesh out all of these, but I've found that not
all are required; and if I run across one that I don't have yet, it's
just a couple of minutes to write it.
Jerry
Gary Scott
You forgot to mention that Fortran has not stood still. It is a
moving/advancing target. Yes it has baggage. But it is evolving quite
well, within those constraints.
--
Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net
Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com
Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html
If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.
-- Henry Ford
anon
Language converts are nice but in the GNU series they may add useless
code because of the number of steps take to convert the code from the
source to object code.
An example:
GNU F77
GNU F90 -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm
GNU F95
asm then using GCC -- to --> object
GNU F2C -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm
asm then using GCC -- to --> object
GNAT -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm
asm then using GCC -- to --> object
F2A -- to --> Ada then using GNAT -- to --> C
C using GCC -- to --> asm
asm then using GCC -- to --> object
The asm package is internal data file unless you ask for a assembly
listing by insert -S into the command line. The "-S" cause the "GCC"
to format and write the data to the 'stdout'.
To truly optimize the code you need to stop and perform code
optimization at each step and then repeat all previous steps. That's a
lot of coding and testing just to optimize code that is already optimize
in FORTRAN. And rewriting the code 2 .. x times to optimize the
algorithm, is pure boring. Some programmers may take the full time
alotted by the school for a Doctoral just to try to increase performance
and optimize an algorithm. After the first couple of months re-writing
the same algorithm they state they are truly bored with the whole
process.
To test this try re-writing an algorithm a couple of times a day for a
month to try to increase the performance. You will get bored too.
Also, as many will tell you those little codes seams to turn into bigger
ones in a blink of an eye. For school projects, that is fine, but in big
business, time is money and that can mean someone job. So, the faster
it works is not always the best policy, it faster you can get operational
the best policy. And that's the reason why people use the pre-defined
libraries.
Then there the compatibility, any library code written in FORTRAN 2, or
IV can be compiled and be linked in FORTRAN 77, 90, 95 or beyond.
I/O may need to be redirected but numerical code needs no rewriting.
But in Ada, like JAVA the packages have changed. Such as
'LOW_LEVEL_IO' package which as defined in Ada 83 but in not in Ada
95, see RM Annex J for some other changes. This suggest that Ada 95
compiler are not required to support Ada 83, and Ada 2005 compiles may
not support Ada 83 or 95. Which means the built-in Ada packages that
you use today may not be there tomorrow and that includes the numeric
packages.
Gnat allows one to limit its code to Ada 83, Ada 95, and Ada 05, but
will that be the case in the next Ada specification update. Of course,
they still have GNAT obsolescent features that still work like the
'pragma No_Run_Time'. So, only time will see!
Then, you forgot to say that HP is playing politics.
That is, there are three main groups that deal with FORTRAN.
First, is the part-time programmers. Like Doctors who program uses
the language because the FORTRAN routine libraries exist. That save
time and lives. but it does increase cost that is pass on to the
end-user for libraries fees.
The second group, loves FORTRAN and actively use FORTRAN and push
for modifications/updates that will make it easier for them to use
the language. They HATE the idea that they may have to rewrite the
FORTRAN libraries so the function of the code can still be used.
Plus, some do not want to give up the copyrights or licenses they
own. So, more Software Patents.
Then there are the one that are trying to kill FORTRAN. HP
since the late 70's is one companies that is trying to retire
FORTRAN. They also voted against adopting FORTRAN 90 and 95,
stating that FORTRAN is outdated and should stop with FORTRAN
77. HP has it reasons, and one could be Ada.
Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the
Software Licenses and Copyright to Ada. DEC was purchase by
COMPAQ then both were purchase by HP. This means that HP owns
the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada. Now, HP pays for
the FORTRAN Software licenses to third parties for the FORTRAN
libraries. If they sell that Ada out performs FORTRAN then they can
start receiving more fees for Ada libraries license then what they are
paying for FORTRAN. Since, licensing fees is a big business, HP
wants a bigger piece of the pie.
TI did something like this with their TI-990 series computers
and PASCAL. They wrote all compilers, assemblers, and Operating
Systems in PASCAL for their home-owned and mini-frame computer
system. The PASCAL programs would be allowed to steal resources
from other users environments or programs. Such as memory and would
receive more time-slice from the operating system. In some cases
FORTRAN programs would require twice to triple the time just to
equal the execution of a PASCAL program. After fine tuning the
operating system for balancing executions, a numeric algorithm
written in FORTRAN would out perform the same algorithm in
PASCAL.
Gautier
> As for F2A:
>
> Language converts are nice but in the GNU series they may add useless
> code because of the number of steps take to convert the code from the
> source to object code.
>
> An example:
..
> GNAT -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm
> asm then using GCC -- to --> object
<<In no sense does GNAT translate your Ada code into C code.>>
Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies (found in groups.google.com)
> F2A -- to --> Ada then using GNAT -- to --> C
> C using GCC -- to --> asm
> asm then using GCC -- to --> object
- The "step" asm to machine code in the object is trivial, asm is just a
human-readable writing for the machine code; no transformation there.
- The GNAT-to-C exists only in your imagination.
- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
At the end, you have one step. Sorry...
As for I/O, apart the LOW_LEVEL_IO you mention (never seen before!), the usual
Text_IO, Direct_IO, Sequential_IO are perfectly compatible from Ada 83 through
Ada 2005. Ada 95's Stream_IO works in Ada 2005 (would you expect the reverse
?). Conversely, a SGI Fortran has slightly different I/O than a Lahey Fortran
and DEC/HP Fortran is still a bit different on that point. The situation is
just the reverse that you imagine.
As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).
Stuart
news:rI9xi.40141$ax1....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
For the benefit of those who have stumbled across this (possibly in the
Google archives), [and for the record] the following contribution from
'anon' is simply not true!
> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
> using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the
> Software Licenses and Copyright to Ada. DEC was purchase by
> COMPAQ then both were purchase by HP. This means that HP owns
> the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada. Now, HP pays for
> the FORTRAN Software licenses to third parties for the FORTRAN
> libraries. If they sell that Ada out performs FORTRAN then they can
> start receiving more fees for Ada libraries license then what they are
> paying for FORTRAN. Since, licensing fees is a big business, HP
> wants a bigger piece of the pie.
DEC did develop an excellent [IMHO] Ada-83 compiler, and it shared its
front-end with the XD-Ada cross compiler. Both were hosted on VAX/VMS
machines which had a strong market position in sectors such as military
suppliers.
DEC/Compaq/HP did not [to my knowledge] develop the Ada-83 product to Ada-95
or Ada-05. I believe you can get GNAT compilers that run on OpenVMS to get
Ada-95 and Ada-05 support on these platforms.
As to copyright - originally the Ada language was defined by a MIL-STD-1815,
but became an ANSI then ISO/IEC standard - now ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E).
Looking in the ANSI/ISO/IEC-8652:1995 - copyright is stated as belonging to
Intermetrics, Inc - but it is stated that the copyright is assigned to the
US Government.
In the Springer LNCS 4348 "Ada 2005 Reference Manual, Language and Standard
Libraries. International Standard ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E) with Technical
Corrigendum 1 and Amendment 1" copyright is quite mixed. The Ada Reference
Manual - Language and Standard Libraries is as I have mentioned above.
Technical Corrigendum 1 is copyright the MITRE Corporation. Amendment 1 is
copyright AXE Consultants, and Ada 2005 Reference Manual is copyright
Ada-Europe.
All give you rights to copy the document; and of course copyright has
nothing to do with using the standard to develop a compiler or using the
language to write a program! (This would be a confusion with patents).
--
Stuart
Nasser Abbasi
Speaking on the subject, Numerical Recipes, considered by some as the
*reference* for this subject, has releases the 3rd edition of this famous
work. A huge and large book.
And it is that is written in nothing else but C++ !
From http://www.nr.com/aboutNR3book.html it says:
"Its code is wholeheartedly object oriented, demonstrating diverse
techniques for using the full power of C++."
I bet the next version will be Numerical Recipes in Java.
Then after that a Numerical Recipes in C#?
I am waiting for Numerical Recipes in Visual Basic to come out, and may be
also a version in JavaScript, and why not Numerical Recipes in Perl? :)
I guess the authors found that Fortran is no longer 'popular' enough, and
C++ is the more sexy language now for selling more copies of the book.
I think a version in Ada will be great, but of course we know that Ada is
not sexy or popular enough, so I am sure this will never happen.
Nasser
Martin Krischik
> DEC/Compaq/HP did not [to my knowledge] develop the Ada-83 product to Ada-95
> or Ada-05. I believe you can get GNAT compilers that run on OpenVMS to get
> Ada-95 and Ada-05 support on these platforms.
Indeed GNAT/Pro is available for OpenVMS.
Martin
--
mailto://kris...@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com
Jerry
> in Fortran), I just googled around for ada binding to blas, here is linkhttp://topo.math.u-psud.fr/~sands/Programs/BLAS/index.html
The above binding is written for Ada 95. It seems to me that a binding
for Ada 2005 would have to be different from this one in that it would
use the official types for vectors and matrices, that is,
type Real_Vector is array (Integer range <>) of Real'Base;
type Real_Matrix is array (Integer range <>, Integer range <>) of
Real'Base;
as defined in Annex G.3 here http://www.adaic.com/standards/05rm/html/RM-G-3-1.html,
whereas the Ada 95 bindings at the link above use these definitions:
type Vector is array (Positive range <>) of Float;
pragma Convention (Fortran, Vector);
type Matrix is array (Positive range <>, Positive range <>) of
Float;
pragma Convention (Fortran, Matrix);
which are declared in the user's program.
(Similarly for complex vectors and matrices.)
Jerry
Jerry
> Speaking on the subject, Numerical Recipes, considered by some as the
> *reference* for this subject, has releases the 3rd edition of this famous
> work. A huge and large book.
>
> And it is that is written in nothing else but C++ !
>
> "Its code is wholeheartedly object oriented, demonstrating diverse
> techniques for using the full power of C++."
>
> I bet the next version will be Numerical Recipes in Java.
>
> Then after that a Numerical Recipes in C#?
>
> I am waiting for Numerical Recipes in Visual Basic to come out, and may be
> also a version in JavaScript, and why not Numerical Recipes in Perl? :)
>
> I guess the authors found that Fortran is no longer 'popular' enough, and
> C++ is the more sexy language now for selling more copies of the book.
>
> I think a version in Ada will be great, but of course we know that Ada is
> not sexy or popular enough, so I am sure this will never happen.
>
> Nasser
Nice post 8^). The old Fortran version of the book of course had a
Pascal appendix and an associated smaller book dedicated to Pascal. (I
have both.) Recent digging around on the official Numerical Recipes
web site reveals that the later versions of the software were never
made available in Pascal. (I could be partially wrong--was the
original version of Numerical Recipes converted to another flavor of
Pascal other than basically the Jensen and Wirth flavor?)
Anyway, the Pascal-to-Ada converter p2ada is said to have successfully
converted the entire Numerical Recipes into Ada. Look here:
http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/gdm/gsoft.htm
Jerry
Markus E.L. 2
'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
> using DEC computer systems.
> So, DEC had at that time had the Software Licenses and Copyright to
> Ada.
> This means that HP owns the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada.
I'd be really surprised if that were so.
< complicated conspiracy theory snipped >
Regards -- Markus
Gautier
> Anyway, the Pascal-to-Ada converter p2ada is said to have successfully
> converted the entire Numerical Recipes into Ada.
That's right, and the "formal" translation itself is pretty easy, there is
indeed even a batch file that does the job automatically. After comes the
manual rework 8-{...
I just updated the file newp2ada.txt in newp2ada.zip by adding
a walk-through that was missing (after downloading nrpas13.zip, cf.
http://www.google.com/search?q=nrpas13.zip ):
To translate the Numerical Recipes in Pascal, you need to:
- unzip nrpas13.zip somewhere
- copy newp2ada\goodies\tr_nrec.bat at the same place
- run tr_nrec.bat
- everything is translated in the Ada subdirectory;
one .adb file per driver/demo, one .adb file with
all recipes
- you need manual rework to make the recipes compile,
e.g., numerical conversions are explicit in Ada (the
compiler will tell you where you need to add explicit
conversions); making a well-modularised,
consistent set of packages of the whole recipes,
with unconstrained array types instead of the dozen of
fixed-size Pascal array types, Ada's complex numbers and
other nice features would be an interesting goal but a long work...
anon
of the net on GNAT Ada and also how to write a Frontend compiler for
gnu's gcc c compiler. Also, for a direct proof take a look at the C coded
procedure called 'gigi' in file "trans.c" in GCC-4.x Ada source packages.
The 'gigi" procedure is called from the procedure "Call_Back_End" in
file "Back_End.adb". Gnat uses it converts the C (ada tree) tree and
generates the assembly code and finally the object code. This is the
structure of all GCC type compilers that use GCC as a backend. And
there are a number of papers at GNU on this.
From GNAT Documentation: The GIGI procedure is defined as Gnat-To-Gnu.
And if you dump each step of the GNAT to object as I stated (see
previous post) you can use a gcc or other gnu compilers to continue
compiling the code.
If building a new version of GNAT once the make process starts build
the GNAT compiler it compile the "GNAT1DRV.ADB" and assoc files.
Renames the file as GNAT1[.ext] then uses this file to compile the
update system. This is because the old installed system may not
understand the new features such as an installed non-Ada 2005 compiler
trying to compile a new Ada 2005 compiler. But the GNAT1 program only
outs assembly code and the assoc ALI file. Then make process must use
the "gcc" or "as" to build the object file. After which the make uses
the installed "GNATBIND" and then either the gcc linker directly or uses
installed "GNATLINK" which calls gcc ln.
>As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).
Well if HP's Ada performance is like TI's PASCAL. It depends on how
the system is configured. And if someone alters that system
configuration your performance may be altered as well. Politics for
computer is money and that still rules the world. It should not but it
does. Ad since a programmers job may depend upon it, the
programmers must have to know and have to play politics or have to
know how to side step it without losing one job.
And most programmer who are into "Performance" do spends a few
hours to weeks in checking this out before accepting which OS and
partition is best and why for them. This is because there is no true
absolute system or partition that has perfect "Performance", every
partition and OS has its pluses and minuses for performance. And if
it is Dynamic like in the case of TI's PASCAL, then the performance
may be a ghost type of performance which may cost you later in
other ways. And this lesson is never taught in intro computer classes
but is learned the HARD WAY!
>- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
>once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
>At the end, you have one step. Sorry...
I guess you have never tried to increase a codes performance. To prove
each step you must start with the original code every time. In the F2A
that is, the FORTRAN code. And sometime to increase a codes
performance you may need to alter the FORTRAN code which has some
documentation and then test it, first. Because for functionally
both the FORTRAN and Ada codes must yield the correct results.
Both in performance and output.
In <46c54d1a$1...@news.bluewin.ch>, Gautier <gau...@fakeaddress.nil> writes:
>anon wrote:
>
>> As for F2A:
>>
>> Language converts are nice but in the GNU series they may add useless
>> code because of the number of steps take to convert the code from the
>> source to object code.
>>
>> An example:
>
>...
anon
DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
its PDP series computer.
Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
Honeywell Bull had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
Note: Since, DEC had the code from 77 - 78 to 83 they had time to
improve the performance of the close library code.
The Design is a far cry from the true copyright, it what some now
call a SOFTWARE PATENT! Even though it more than this you could
think of the design as pseudo code or flowcharting for the old
timers.
Also anything that Government touches it take FULL credit for it,
unless it is a screw-up, then they have nothing to do with it. Of
course all documentation for any part of the DOD projects at that
time were under the DOD copyright. But that's the US government
for you!
As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.
But the design and first full language compiler was created in
77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was
not the first word only the first publish word.
NOTE: As with all post in the Newsgroups! We do take short cut and
leave some info for you to learn and understand for yourself.
>As to copyright - originally the Ada language was defined by a MIL-STD-1815,
>but became an ANSI then ISO/IEC standard - now ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E).
>Looking in the ANSI/ISO/IEC-8652:1995 - copyright is stated as belonging to
>Intermetrics, Inc - but it is stated that the copyright is assigned to the
>US Government.
Gautier
> From GNAT Documentation: The GIGI procedure is defined as Gnat-To-Gnu.
Bravo, *that's* the point: GNAT-to-GNU, not GNAT-to-C !
Thank you for finding yourself your mistakes ;-).
You are mistaken by the fact that in its early days, GCC was the "GNU C
Compiler", but for a long time now it is the "GNU Compiler Collection".
> And if you dump each step of the GNAT to object as I stated (see
> previous post) you can use a gcc or other gnu compilers to continue
> compiling the code.
You can also take any other compiler's sources and dump its tables, internal
representations for optimizing; and usually commercial compilers (even if you
don't have their sources) also offer to dump the assembler code beside the
corresponding object code. The fact that the object code is spit by the
compiler executable and not by as.exe makes absolutely no difference for the
code itself; in compilation time it takes maybe a fraction of second more,
that's all.
The steps: Source -> Internal representation (tables, tree or whatever) ->
Machine code (eventually with 1-to-1 equivalent asm inbetween) are the same on
every compiler. The fact that GNAT does it openly and via several executables
gives you the impression that it is more complicated; it is just more
convenient to do so in the context of the GNU toolchain. Conversely, if the
same stuff was packed into a single .exe and there was no documentation about
how it works, you would believe that it is simpler because it is all stuffed
in a black box. It's a bit naive...
>> As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).
>
> Well if HP's Ada performance is like TI's PASCAL. It depends on how
> the system is configured. [...]
Well, that's the same for all systems. I happend some years ago to compare DEC
Fortran and DEC Ada on the same AXP machine with some matrix crunching code.
Both timings were very near, which was a compliment for the Ada compiler, but
less a surprise when I heard that the compilers back-ends were the same (like
for the GNU Compiler Collection ;-) ). That's it. And all this dramatic story
about TI Pascal, politics, jobs and money seem very thrilling but (I'm afraid)
a bit obscure to me...
Markus E.L. 2
'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
> First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
> DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
> its PDP series computer.
No. You were writing
>>> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
>>> using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the
Confused, aren't you?
> Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
> non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
> was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
> before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
> Honeywell Bull had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
> source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
> DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
Source?
> Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
> Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
> department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
> Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
Since "Green" became Ada only in 1979 and DEC was not among the four
contractors for defining the lanuage I'd be surprised if this were in
any sense true. But perhaps you're again mixing up "compiler" with
something else?
> Note: Since, DEC had the code from 77 - 78 to 83 they had time to
> improve the performance of the close library code.
>
> The Design is a far cry from the true copyright, it what some now
> call a SOFTWARE PATENT! Even though it more than this you could
Performance? Library? Design? Design of what? Software patent? What's
the patent number?
> think of the design as pseudo code or flowcharting for the old
> timers.
What are you talking about? DEC had a specification (?) in pseudo code
(or flow charts?) for whatever (librar? compiler?) and improved the
performance of this and everybody else had to buy it from them for
what reason ever? I can't make neither hand nor foot from what you
write.
> Also anything that Government touches it take FULL credit for it,
> unless it is a screw-up, then they have nothing to do with it. Of
> course all documentation for any part of the DOD projects at that
> time were under the DOD copyright.
Well, perhaps because they paid for it. Though how that dovetails with
your earlier assertion that DEC has some substantial part of rights in
something, I don't know.
> But that's the US government for you!
I'm not a US citizen, but I think that it would actually be a good
thing that they don't pay with tax dollars for the development
something that then stay proprietary IP of somebody else.
> As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.
> But the design and first full language compiler was created in
> 77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was
> not the first word only the first publish word.
Not even that: All design documents for Ada and most of the proposals
where public too. If I understand it right, 'MIL-STD-1815' only
standardized the language for military use.
> NOTE: As with all post in the Newsgroups! We do take short cut and
> leave some info for you to learn and understand for yourself.
Unfortunately you are fudding. With more and more informative Websites
and FTPsites from the past going the way of the Dodo, but Usenet being
preserved by Google for all eternity, I fear that future (hobby)
historians will only find drivel and FUD and the rantings of
revisionists.
- Markus
Markus E.L. 2
'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
> As for GNAT converting Ada to C. Try looking at a number of papers
> of the net on GNAT Ada and also how to write a Frontend compiler for
> gnu's gcc c compiler. Also, for a direct proof take a look at the C coded
> procedure called 'gigi' in file "trans.c" in GCC-4.x Ada source packages.
> The 'gigi" procedure is called from the procedure "Call_Back_End" in
> file "Back_End.adb". Gnat uses it converts the C (ada tree) tree and
> generates the assembly code and finally the object code. This is the
> structure of all GCC type compilers that use GCC as a backend. And
> there are a number of papers at GNU on this.
Does the expression "intermediate representation" or "intermediate
code" convey any meaning to you?
>>- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
>>once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
>>At the end, you have one step. Sorry...
>
> I guess you have never tried to increase a codes performance. To prove
> each step you must start with the original code every time. In the F2A
> that is, the FORTRAN code. And sometime to increase a codes
> performance you may need to alter the FORTRAN code which has some
> documentation and then test it, first. Because for functionally
> both the FORTRAN and Ada codes must yield the correct results.
> Both in performance and output.
What ist so difficult about "forget"? Forget as in "throw away" ...
- M
anon
"Green" is Green Hills Software, Inc" join in Ada in the year 1983.
You check the Web sites. Because when anything is link to DOD,
CIA, FBI it can be a long time before the Full Truth is known. It
can take 10, 20, 50, and even longer, and in some case never before
they decide to release the complete information. So, web sites that are
linked to anything that they are involved in may be in error for a very
long time. And that goes for Ada computer since it was started with
the DOD.
Stuart
> First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
> DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
> its PDP series computer.
>
> Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
> non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
> was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
> before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
> Honeywell Bull had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
> source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
> DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>
> Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
> Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
> department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
> Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
This [the bit about DEC] seems to have been totally overlooked in the
'history' recorded at the AdaPower web-site. There the early development of
an Ada 'compiler' is associated with New York University (NYU) and the
Ada/Ed model (c1980).
Do you have any references for the role of DEC? I am also unclear about
just what these 'libraries' actually are; could you elaborate some more
please? There seems to be a scarcity of information about this - even on
the HP web-site (which still provides the supporting documentation for the
DEC Ada product).
[This includes their annotated Ada Language Reference Manual, which seems
to be one of the few available electronic versions of the old Ada83
standard.]
> As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.
> But the design and first full language compiler was created in
> 77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was
> not the first word only the first publish word.
That is true (and I don't think I claimed otherwise); the main history of
Ada is quite readily available - this includes the roles of the
STRAWMAN-STEELMAN documents, the four competing development teams Green,
Red, Blue & Yellow. All these documents were published for review. (I
think it is possible to find a commentary on Green by Dijkstra online).
--
Stuart
Markus E.L. 2
'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
>>Since "Green" became Ada only in 1979 and DEC was not among the four
>>contractors for defining the lanuage I'd be surprised if this were in
>>any sense true. But perhaps you're again mixing up "compiler" with
>>something else?
> I DO NOT LISTEN TO TROLL!
>
> "Green" is Green Hills Software, Inc" join in Ada in the year 1983.
"Green" was the code name of the language proposal finally selected by
the DOD to become Ada. This here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%28programming_language%29 is
probably not complete, but you might start there if you need to learn
a bit more about the history of Ada ...
> You check the Web sites. Because when anything is link to DOD,
> CIA, FBI it can be a long time before the Full Truth is known. It
> can take 10, 20, 50, and even longer, and in some case never before
> they decide to release the complete information. So, web sites that are
> linked to anything that they are involved in may be in error for a very
> long time. And that goes for Ada computer since it was started with
> the DOD.
..., but perhaps wikipedia has been subverted by the CIA, DOD, the
FBI, MI5 or perhaps the MOSSAD even, to falsify history and suppress
THE TRUTH!
I'm by the way quite suprised that you don't have a clue about how Ada
came about, but give important sounding history lessons in c.l.a.
(Hm, perhaps this was too polite: I'll try to be more clear: You don't
have a clue. Have the grace to shut up as not to confuse people new in
this topics who might find your attempts of misinformation first.)
Regards -- Markus
Markus E.L. 2
'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
> You check the Web sites. Because when anything is link to DOD,
> CIA, FBI it can be a long time before the Full Truth is known. It
> can take 10, 20, 50, and even longer, and in some case never before
> they decide to release the complete information. So, web sites that are
> linked to anything that they are involved in may be in error for a very
> long time. And that goes for Ada computer since it was started with
> the DOD.
You've an Ada computer? Man, you must be really deep inside in this
Ada conspiracy you keep on waffling about: I have to content myself
with an Ada compiler only.
Regards -- Markus (laughing even harder)
anon
Since you stated on the 18th that you are not a US citizen
(Message-ID: <9ky7g95...@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de>). You
probility do not know how the US protect it borders and how
the US government uses miss-information to kept the US safe
from outsiders.
During the "COLD WAR" (mid 1940s to mid 1980s) the DOD and other
US government departments put out a lot of miss-information and some
of the truth is still classified even today. And because of how the US
works on security only a US citizen could find out the truth when the
information becomes de-classified.
So, unless your are one of the team members that security has been
de-classified you should not continue spreading your miss-information.
But to be on the team at that time you had to be a US citizen.
Note: I only use the miss-information that web sites like
en.wikipedia.org or Adaic on history when I need a good laugh!
Randy Brukardt
news:46c9516a$1...@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
...
> [This includes their annotated Ada Language Reference Manual, which
seems
> to be one of the few available electronic versions of the old Ada83
> standard.]
For what it's worth, you can find downloadable versions of Ada 83 documents
on our archive of the AJPO AdaIC site:
http://archive.adaic.com/standards/ada83.html
The HTML is rough and sometimes buggy (apparently whomever converted it
didn't have any tools and did it by hand with a text editor), but the
complete text of the standard is there.
Randy Brukardt, webmaster AdaIC.org/.com
Gary Scott
frequently (Steve Lionel). You could probably post there or contact him
directly, or via the intel fortran forum (Intel bought the bulk of the
DEC compiler team). He's repeatedly stated that Ada is his favorite
language, so he's likely to be interested in contributed.
Stuart
news:Dcryi.18691$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
> One of the DEC compiler team members posts in comp.lang.fortran frequently
> (Steve Lionel). You could probably post there or contact him directly, or
> via the intel fortran forum (Intel bought the bulk of the DEC compiler
> team). He's repeatedly stated that Ada is his favorite language, so he's
> likely to be interested in contributed.
Thanks for the suggestion Gary - however in the absence of any other
references from 'anon', and given the general direction the thread is going,
I do not think that Steve would be able to add anything to what is already
known. The recent posting by 'anon', decrying the AdaIC information (and an
incredulous belief that something released in the US, to its general
citezens, under FoI could somehow remain secret from the rest of the world)
are rather telling. My conclusion is that the established history given at
AdaIC and AdaPower, as far as the development of the Ada language is
concerned, is reasonably accurate and substantially complete.
['Anon' may have done better to have gone with the conspiracy theory that
the US was creating sabotaged compilers to go with the VAXen that the
Eastern block countries were acquiring by subterfuge (they being embargoed
technology).]
--
Stuart
anon
Walnut Creek Ada CDROM, Nov 90 (Personal copy). A copyrighted and
licensed CD by Walnut Creek CDROM.
The CD contain the NYU GNAT compile for DEC (pdp-11), DOS, OS2 ver
1.3 and pre 2.0. For those who use Windows you had to use the DOS
shell in version 3.x and GNAT DOS version. The CD also had the Ada
specs for Ada-78, Ada-80, Ada-83.
Note: The DOS (MSDOS or IBM DOS) version, allowed one to use the
"pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada
program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS
version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.
But when Ada-95 came out Walnut altered the CDROM and removed
all binaries for Ada-83, replacing them with Ada-95 versions. They
also altered the spec to include only the Ada 95 and Ada 83 version.
But if you look on ACM you can find references to Ada-80 and Ada-78.
And there are a few web pages on a number of US military web sites
that talking about Ada-78 and its creator DEC Ada Team.
Also, as most ITs will tell you all web sites can be attacked or Hacked
into. Just like SCO was during the firstpart of it legal battle with IBM.
Also IT's can tell you there is no information on a web site that is
absolute safe from hacker either. So, how can one FULLLY TRUST what
is published on a web page if any good hacker can alter that web page.
Stuart
> Just for your information! The information that I used came from a
> Walnut Creek Ada CDROM, Nov 90 (Personal copy). A copyrighted and
> licensed CD by Walnut Creek CDROM.
Thank you for the reference.
> Note: The DOS (MSDOS or IBM DOS) version, allowed one to use the
> "pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada
> program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS
> version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.
For ref: the current version of GNAT supports a "No Run Time" option
(GNORT) - and many other compiler supporting the embedded market provide
minimal (or no) run time system options.
The NYU DOS compiler (Ada/Ed) is still available on various archives of the
PAL - it is identified as freeware (as in free beer). This does not seem to
square with your early statements regarding DEC broad ownership of critical
language related libraries - so may not be the one you are referring to!
> Also, as most ITs will tell you all web sites can be attacked or Hacked
> into. Just like SCO was during the firstpart of it legal battle with IBM.
> Also IT's can tell you there is no information on a web site that is
> absolute safe from hacker either. So, how can one FULLLY TRUST what
> is published on a web page if any good hacker can alter that web page.
I think many would agree with you that people need to be very wary about
taking everything you read on the internet/usenet as 'true' (mind you the
same can be said of many things found in more conventional printed matter).
This is one reason why it is essential to understand the provenance of any
claims made - particularly any that are challenging widely accepted
viewpoints.
Similarly, if one aims to seriously refute a widely respected source of
information there is a need for a well-constructed challenge.
--
Stuart
Gautier
>> "pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada
>> program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS
>> version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.
Stuart:
> For ref: the current version of GNAT supports a "No Run Time" option
> (GNORT) - and many other compiler supporting the embedded market provide
> minimal (or no) run time system options.
>
> The NYU DOS compiler (Ada/Ed) is still available on various archives of the
> PAL - it is identified as freeware (as in free beer). This does not seem to
> square with your early statements regarding DEC broad ownership of critical
> language related libraries - so may not be the one you are referring to!
BTW, a fresh GNAT build for DOS is done periodically under the DJGPP project
news:comp.os.msdos.djgpp ; http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
I have not checked recently how well the DJGPP Ada compiler works, but it is there (ada421b/d.zip 28.07.07):
ftp://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu or mirror sites.
anon
The NYU DOS Ada-83 version did not require the DJGPP package. Its
used only the MSDOS version 3.3 to 6.0. There were RTS files wriiten
in C that NYU maintain, these were drop when Microsoft drop DOS. Then
Ada-95 GNAT version for DOS was created using the DJGPP package.
Also, forgot to say, the Walnul Creek Ada Set was certified by the
DOD. In which the DOD approved all statements and files on that
CD set.
The last version of the "Walnul Creek Ada" was in 1999. Because in
1998 the DOD close, "The Ada Joint Program Office". The DOD decided
to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C. This
also means that the "Walnul Creek Ada" 1999 pack was not certified
by the DOD.
Now as for the main three web sites.
Ada-auth.org came into existence: 8 of OCT 2002.
The somewhat buggy Adaic.org came into existence 13 of OCT, 2002.
AdaPower.org came into existence in 6 of JUL 2000.
So, if they initially use the "Walnul Creek Ada" CD-ROM pack they
probability use the 1999 version, since each "Walnul Creek" CD-ROM
pack were updated every 3 months.
Georg Bauhaus
> The DOD decided
> to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C.
Do you happen to have a pointer to further information about
a DoD decision to switch to cheap languages such as C? Fine
if it is only published in print, or on the web, or by the
government, by the DoD, on old CD-ROMs (of which I own a few),
wherever.
TIA,
-- Georg
anon
I read this back in the early 2000s somewhere that DOD had stop
supporting Ada or what they call the "Ada Joint Program Office"
back in 98. So, in my last post about the GNAT DOS I check
google and came across the GCN article ( link follows ) that
gave some information about this. The fun part in reading this
was that the article started that congress did not understand
the DOD decision. [ Congress, not understanding? Go figure! ]
Link => http://www.gcn.com/print/17_15/33804-1.html
GCN => Government Computer News (Magazine)
Article Date := June 22, 1998 issue
Article Name := It's curtains for the Ada Joint Program Office
Note => The "Ada Joint Program Office" closed in Oct 1998, and
its web site shutdown in Nov 1998.
Also check out:
Link => http://www.gcn.com/print/16_17/32544-1.html
GCN => Government Computer News (Magazine)
Article Date := June 16, 1997 issue
Article Name := Defense lifts its Ada requirement for programming
And
Link => https://listserv.dtic.mil/listcgi/wa?A2=ind0608&L=it-cop-l&P=2765
Web page type := ( Forum | Email )
adaw...@sbcglobal.net
>
> The last version of the "Walnul Creek Ada" was in 1999. Because in
> 1998 the DOD close, "The Ada Joint Program Office". The DOD decided
> to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C. This
> also means that the "Walnul Creek Ada" 1999 pack was not certified
> by the DOD.
>
assessment of Mr. Paige's (then Assistant Secretary of Defense) memo lifting
the Ada mandate has been widely disseminated. Rather, Mr. Paige opened
the door to the use of other languages so Ada would compete on its merits
instead of on a strict policy level.
In Mr. Paige's memo, he even cited Ada's success along with his belief that,
since Ada had proven to be a valuable tool for DoD software, it was now able
to stand on its own in the competitive environment of programming language
choice.
Mr. Paige expressed the hope that Ada would continue to be used for vital
DoD software.
Many in the DoD and elsewhere misinterpreted Mr. Paige's memo lifting the
Ada mandate. Unfortunately, this misinterpretation is now so widespread that
many DoD personnel are of the opinion that Ada has been "forbidden" for
military software. Somehow, the simple lifting of the mandate has gone through
a series of stages: Ada is no longer required; Ada is no longer supported
(closing
of the AJPO); Ada is no longer to be used; Ada is now forbidden.
The reality is that Mr. Paige, and his original DoD memo, foresaw Ada as
continuing to serve the needs of military software far into the future, but more
as one of a set of options than as the sole [mandated] option.
Ada continues to be used for DoD software systems, though not as widely as
it once was, primarily due to the misinterpretation of Mr. Paige's memo.
Richard Riehle