Ada Resource Association

The choice of programming languages is one of the most critical decisions in any programming project. And there’s no shortage of choices. In the 60-year history of computer programming, hundreds of different languages have been designed and used for various purposes.

Developing an embedded system is hard work. Reliability is essential; indeed, embedded software may control a safety- or security-critical system where an error can have catastrophic consequences. New requirements will almost surely pop up, so the software must be maintain- able. Real-time constraints and memory limitations make time and space predictability and run-time performance important.

In a 2002 survey by the independent market research firm VDC, embedded Ada developers named the language’s ability to find bugs in compile time as its major benefit. Its nature as an ISO standard and object oriented language were Ada’s next important advantages. Almost half of those surveyed believe that Ada reduces a project’s costs. VDC’s results are available in the .pdf file Ada in Embedded Systems (five pages).

GCN (Government Computer News) interviews S. Tucker Taft, who led the Ada 9X language design team from 1990 to 1995, is now president of the Ada Resource Association, organized last year to maintain the language standard after the Defense Department closed the Ada Joint Program Office.