8 ms·

The Ada Programming Language

63 points by jayp1418 4y ago

Jtsummers 4y ago
This appears to copy the AARM but the bottom of the site claims to be licensing everything under Apache 2.0 and neglects the actual copyrights on the text. They can be seen here: http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/2xaarm/html/AA-TTL.html http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/2xaarm/html/AA-TTL.html That's not a terribly good idea in general. Interestingly, for the Style Guide they were at least courteous enough to note the original license, but not the AARM.
- onox 4y ago
  The text at the bottom says "unless otherwise noted". The .md files for the AARM are autogenerated and it seems the legal + foreword pages are missing. These indeed need to be added. The announcement was done by an external person, but nonetheless thanks for bringing it to our attention. The website is still work in progress and is intended to be handed off to the Ada community.
- onox 4y ago
  Title page with legal info has been added!
bee_rider 4y ago
Was there a new release or anything?
- agumonkey 4y ago
  seems like a toolchain effort to lower entry point
- onox 4y ago
  This website is just a community effort to modernize parts of the online resources, because many parts like the current Ada Reference Manual look like they're from the 90s.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
csande17 4y ago
I took a look at Ada recently and was disappointed by how they've adopted an NPM-style package management approach. This was seemingly inspired by Rust -- Ada even calls its packages "crates" -- but the "bazillion micropackages owned by Internet randos" structure these tools encourage undermines many of the security benefits of both languages. Does anyone know if there's a way to get a modern Ada compiler toolchain (and IDE support etc) without depending on this ecosystem?
- topdancing 4y ago
  Funny how before Alire was a thing, people complained that there was no easy way to take other people's Ada code and add it to one's own software projects. Now Alire exists and people complain that it's easy to add people's code into their own projects. You don't even have to use Alire in the first place - every modern Linux distro ships with an Ada compiler - on Fedora just install gcc-gnat and off you go.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Seconded, having to grab 9 crates just to get random numbers in rust is my least favorite thing about the language. As adacore and ferrous systems work on the safety critical rust (ferrocene), I'm hoping they create a vetted and well tested subset of crates.io that I can just install from a tgz. The fine granularity of dependencies that package managers have facilitated has made air-gapped devlopment logistically very difficult. And it makes safety or security certifications impossible.
  - smaddox 4y ago
    > The fine granularity of dependencies that package managers have facilitated has made air-gapped devlopment logistically very difficult. And it makes safety or security certifications impossible. Cargo has a vendor feature: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/commands/cargo-vendor.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/commands/cargo-vendor.html Is there some language ecosystem that is better?
    - pjmlp 4y ago
amilios 4y ago
What is the biggest Ada-based project currently in use? Does anyone know? Is Ada more for DoD-type backend-stuff, where Fortran or C would be used, or something else? What is Ada for?
- topdancing 4y ago
  https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/02/05/adacore-secure-autonomous-driving/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/02/05/adacore-secure-auto... And there's a whole new Paris metro line that runs on Ada: https://www.adahome.com/Ammo/Success/subway.html https://www.adahome.com/Ammo/Success/subway.html
- csande17 4y ago
  I don't know about specific projects, but the main Ada use case I've heard about is safety-critical embedded systems in heavily regulated industries. The same sort of places you might use NASA JPL's famously strict rules for C code--things like control loops for jet engines. (One of the most compelling reasons to use Ada is SPARK, a theorem prover bolted onto the compiler that can formally verify your program doesn't violate any assertions or trigger any runtime errors.)
  - jayp1418 4y ago
    Nvidia, Boeing, many satellite programmes, Raven Ports http://www.ravenports.com/ http://www.ravenports.com/
- kjs3 4y ago
  One example would be the Boeing 777 flight control software.

63 points by jayp1418 4y ago

This appears to copy the AARM but the bottom of the site claims to be licensing everything under Apache 2.0 and neglects the actual copyrights on the text. They can be seen here: http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/2xaarm/html/AA-TTL.html http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/2xaarm/html/AA-TTL.html That's not a terribly good idea in general. Interestingly, for the Style Guide they were at least courteous enough to note the original license, but not the AARM.

onox 4y ago
The text at the bottom says "unless otherwise noted". The .md files for the AARM are autogenerated and it seems the legal + foreword pages are missing. These indeed need to be added. The announcement was done by an external person, but nonetheless thanks for bringing it to our attention. The website is still work in progress and is intended to be handed off to the Ada community.
onox 4y ago
Title page with legal info has been added!

bee_rider 4y ago

Was there a new release or anything?

agumonkey 4y ago
seems like a toolchain effort to lower entry point
onox 4y ago
This website is just a community effort to modernize parts of the online resources, because many parts like the current Ada Reference Manual look like they're from the 90s.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

csande17 4y ago

I took a look at Ada recently and was disappointed by how they've adopted an NPM-style package management approach. This was seemingly inspired by Rust -- Ada even calls its packages "crates" -- but the "bazillion micropackages owned by Internet randos" structure these tools encourage undermines many of the security benefits of both languages. Does anyone know if there's a way to get a modern Ada compiler toolchain (and IDE support etc) without depending on this ecosystem?

topdancing 4y ago
Funny how before Alire was a thing, people complained that there was no easy way to take other people's Ada code and add it to one's own software projects. Now Alire exists and people complain that it's easy to add people's code into their own projects. You don't even have to use Alire in the first place - every modern Linux distro ships with an Ada compiler - on Fedora just install gcc-gnat and off you go.
galangalalgol 4y ago
Seconded, having to grab 9 crates just to get random numbers in rust is my least favorite thing about the language. As adacore and ferrous systems work on the safety critical rust (ferrocene), I'm hoping they create a vetted and well tested subset of crates.io that I can just install from a tgz. The fine granularity of dependencies that package managers have facilitated has made air-gapped devlopment logistically very difficult. And it makes safety or security certifications impossible.
- smaddox 4y ago
  > The fine granularity of dependencies that package managers have facilitated has made air-gapped devlopment logistically very difficult. And it makes safety or security certifications impossible. Cargo has a vendor feature: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/commands/cargo-vendor.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/commands/cargo-vendor.html Is there some language ecosystem that is better?
  - pjmlp 4y ago

amilios 4y ago

What is the biggest Ada-based project currently in use? Does anyone know? Is Ada more for DoD-type backend-stuff, where Fortran or C would be used, or something else? What is Ada for?

topdancing 4y ago
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/02/05/adacore-secure-autonomous-driving/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/02/05/adacore-secure-auto... And there's a whole new Paris metro line that runs on Ada: https://www.adahome.com/Ammo/Success/subway.html https://www.adahome.com/Ammo/Success/subway.html
csande17 4y ago
I don't know about specific projects, but the main Ada use case I've heard about is safety-critical embedded systems in heavily regulated industries. The same sort of places you might use NASA JPL's famously strict rules for C code--things like control loops for jet engines. (One of the most compelling reasons to use Ada is SPARK, a theorem prover bolted onto the compiler that can formally verify your program doesn't violate any assertions or trigger any runtime errors.)
- jayp1418 4y ago
  Nvidia, Boeing, many satellite programmes, Raven Ports http://www.ravenports.com/ http://www.ravenports.com/
kjs3 4y ago
One example would be the Boeing 777 flight control software.