Ada Resource Association

Stuart Matthews explains how SPARK 2014 uses and extends the features of Ada 2012 for automated verification of programs.

Unit Test has been around almost as long as software development itself. It just makes sense to take each application building block, build it in isolation, and execute it with test data to make sure that it does just what it should do without any confusing input from the remainder of the application. In the past, the sting came from not being able to simply lift a software unit from its development environment, compile and run it let alone supply it with test data.

LDRA has released a security-critical development and certification solution to ensure the company’s tool suite meets the growing demand for security-critical software.

An article in GCN (Government Computing News) that looks at an NSA-funded project carried out by the U.K.-based Praxis High Integrity Systems and Spre Inc. NSA commissioned the project, which involved writing code for an access control system, to demonstrate high-assurance software engineering.

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.

In November of 2007, the National Museum of Computing sponsored an historical code-breaking competition to celebrate the rebuild of Colossus Mark 2 at Bletchley Park. Colossus, the first programmable digital computer, was used in WWII to crack the codes created by the Lorenz cipher machines used by the German High Command. Programmers and code breakers were invited to try to beat the rebuilt Colossus in cracking the 1938 Lorenz SZ42 encrypted message.

Using Ada, IT security specialist, Joachim Schüth, was able to decipher the code and beat Colossus. In the following interview, Joachim explains why he started working with Ada, his impressions of the language, and why it was the perfect choice for the challenge.