Ada Resources

Commercial Tools and Components


Ada-ASSURED

Ada-ASSURED is an easy-to-learn, multi-window development environment designed to increase programmer productivity and enforce compliance with accepted Ada programming style rules, including the Ada Quality and Style guidelines developed by the Software Productivity Consortium (SPC) and recommended by the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO).

Language-sensitive editing, standards enforcement, browsing, and pretty printing are provided in a single package that can be integrated with any Ada compiler. As a true LSE, Ada-ASSURED knows the rules of Ada, so it automates a variety of tasks enabling both novice and advanced Ada programmers to write and maintain code faster, and with fewer errors. Productivity features include: context-sensitive templates, hypertext browsing, structural navigation and editing, and automatic high-quality formatting. Ada-ASSURED ensures syntactic correctness and warns programmers whenever style guideline violations are detected. Standards enforcement can be customized to meet customer or project requirements. The optional Batch Processing Module is designed to check existing code and assist bringing it into conformance if desired. Code checked or generated by Ada-ASSURED is consistently easier to read, understand, modify, and reuse.

Ada-ASSURED also includes a powerful Scheme-based scripting language for customizing Ada-ASSURED, creating custom Ada code transformation tools or generating metrics reports.

Contact: jeff@grammatech.com
Jeff Burns, Director of Marketing
GrammaTech, Inc., One Hopkins Place, Ithaca, NY 14850
Tel: +1 607-273-7340
Fax: +1 607-273-8752


AdaTEST

IPL's AdaTEST and AdaTEST 95 are proven Ada software testing tools which can inprove the quality of Ada software. Used in the context of a regular software engineering process they can dramatically reduce the amount of bugs found at system proving level and the time wasted fixing them. Currently being used by major US corporations, on some high-profile programs (Boeing 777, F22, Space Shuttle and others) here is the chance to engineer some really good quality straight into your software from the very start.

AdaTEST/95 provides support for the production of repeatable and automated test scripts featuring automated results checking, simulation of external software through programmable stubs and many other useful features. Coverage analysis up to the highest levels required by safety-critical systems is an integrated facility, and many useful static analysis metrics can be produced.

AdaTEST/95 is available for all major Ada development systems on all principal host and target platforms.

Contact: tools@iplbath.com
Ian Gilchrist, IPL, BATH, UK
Tel: (+44)(0)1225-475000


AdaFlow: an Ada-oriented design tool

ICONIX Software Engineering, Inc. markets AdaFlow(tm), a CASE tool that supports Ada-oriented design and Ada development using Buhr/Booch style diagrams and Module Architecture Diagrams for Booch OOD, an integrated Dictionary, and a Language Sensitive Editor for C++ and Ada.


SPARK Software Engineering

SPARK Software Engineering is an integrated approach to the design, development and verification of complex software. Targetted to Ada it provides:

Computer-based systems used in high-integrity applications present the challenge of producing software safely and cost-efficiently, often to meet the requirements of an industry regulator. Equally where high system reliability is a requirement we need to satisfy ourselves that the proposed software engineering process is well-founded. Praxis specialises in all aspects of high-integrity systems and is the owner of the SPARK product set.

SPARK Software Engineering has been used successfully on complex systems, in a variety of industries. Financial benefit is evident when the toolset is used sufficiently early in the development lifecycle to help establish a sound software design. The approach also meets the associated requirements of the key industry standards for software, and is accepted for use by industry regulators.

Contact: sparkinfo@praxis-cs.co.uk
Praxis Critical Systems, 20 Manvers Street, Bath, BA1 1PX, UK.
Tel: +44-(0)1225-466991
Fax: +44-(0)1225-469006


OSS ASN.1 to Ada compiler

Open Systems Solutions, Inc. has scheduled delivery of ASN.1 compilers with support for several languages in 1997.


Xinotech: language translation and metalanguage-tools

Xinotech sells tools to translate from various languages into Ada, as well as from Ada 83 to Ada 95. They also have tools to analyze and manipulate programs written in various languages.


REFINE/Ada: interactive, extensible reengineering workbench

Reasoning Systems seeks to "translate advances in software engineering technology into breakthrough products and services for industry."

Their code analysis and transformation tools, available for Ada and various other languages, let you--

REFINE Language Tools, and Software Refinery(TM) run on SPARC, RS/6000 and HP 9000/7xx workstations and are designed to handle millions of lines of source code. Each tool has a comprehensive API so you can extend them to work with different languages and to perform user-specified code analysis and transformation tasks.


Software Compositions: re-engineering tool

Software Compositions is developing re-engineering products for Ada that support evolving software and salvaging reusable software out of existing software. Our tool supports re-engineering activities such as acquiring program understanding, assessing program quality, and implementing perfective enhancements. The tool analyzes Ada source code, identifies possible improvements, and suggests how to implement the improvements. The analysis can be customized based on project standards and preferences. The tool transforms the software to implement the suggested improvements under the direction of the user. Transformations may also be individually requested by the user to address specific needs.

Analyses and transformations for software improvement are currently supported in the following areas:

The tool also supports transformation of Ada 83 software to comply with the new Ada 9X standard.

The tool can help with the process of extracting design documentation for your inherited system. Prior to generating the documentation, the tool could be used to make limited improvements that would make the documentation more effective for describing the architecture of the system. For example, the tool could remove declarations of variables that are never referenced, or move with clauses to the most local unit requiring visibility. By removing superfluous program elements and unit dependencies, only relevant information will be present in the generated design documents.

The tool runs on UNIX and has a graphical user interface.

Contact: Software Compositions, PO Box 510477, Melbourne Beach, FL 32951
phone: (407) 952-0430
fax: (407) 952-7716


AdaCAST: a Computer Aided Software Test System for Ada Language Programs

Vector Engineering (Vector) has released AdaCAST, a Computer Aided Software Test (CAST) system designed exclusively for testing Ada language components. This productivity tool provides automatic test code generation (Test Harnesses consisting of Drivers and Stubs) necessary to perform component level testing. In addition to test harness construction, the AdaCAST system provides utilities to construct and manage test cases, execute test cases and build execution reports.

AdaCAST provides both the application developer and the independent test organization a means to automate the testing required on all DOD-STD 2167A and RTCA/DO178A/B programs. This test system will significantly reduce the labor hours associated with the current manual test process by allowing engineers to perform Ada testing without writing test software.

Vector was founded in 1989 to provide application development and test support for real-time embedded systems using Ada. Vector has combined a company developed test methodology with the practical requirements dictated by today's marketplace to develop a system that provides instant pay-back and is powerful, yet extremely easy to use.

AdaCAST runs on all major PC and workstation platforms running UNIX, DOS and VAX/VMS.

Contact: Vector Engineering, 1130 Ten Rod Road, Suite E-102, North Kingstown, RI 02852
phone: (401) 295-5855
fax: (401) 295-5856
e-mail: 1vector@delphi.com


TeleUse/Ada: GUI builder, multi-platform

TeleUSE/Ada is a full-featured User Interface Management System (UIMS) designed to meet the special needs of Ada developers. It provides specific support needed by large Ada GUI projects (and ensures that these programs comply with the Department of Defense (DoD) mandate that all GUI applications be written in Ada). TeleUSE/Ada addresses the entire GUI lifecycle, helping you create an interface that is easy to modify and maintain well beyond the design and development phases.

Contact: Aonix, phone: (800) 97-AONIX


Screen Machine: GUI development and portability tool

Screen Machine offers an integrated suite of tools for designing, testing and delivering high quality, portable user-interfaces. No specific knowledge of the application programming interface (API) is necessary.

Simply draw the screen with PanPaint, generate the Ada code with GenCode and then compile your application on the target system. Versions are available for all major compilers on Motif/X-Window, Unix Curses, MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows.

Contact: Objective Interface Systems, Inc., 1895 Preston White Drive, #250, Reston, Virginia 22091
phone: (703) 264-1900, or 1-(800) 800-6477
fax: (703) 264-1721


ICS Ada Xcessories: GUI builder, Motif
("The Power to create. The Freedom to choose.")

The ICS Ada Xcessories is a graphical user interface (GUI) builder to create robust OSF/Motif applications and reusable interface objects. The tool, which conforms to the STARS bindings recommended by Paramax/STARS, provides Ada programmers with the ability to simply and quickly generate Ada code. The ICS Ada Xcessories consist of three modules: BX/Ada, Ada/Motif, and OSF/Motif.

With ICS Ada Xcessories, Ada developers can also experience the programming power of ICS' Builder Xcessory (BX/Ada) GUI builder, the interactive, graphical tool for building and prototyping OSF/Motif-based user interfaces. BX/Ada generates clean, portable Ada code that doesn't require any additional royalties or runtime libraries.

Generating Ada code with BX/Ada is extremely easy. A pull-down menu option allows you to generate Ada code in a single step. Using BX/Ada, developers can build an OSF/Motif user interface for Ada applications. BX/Ada dramatically cuts user interface development time by allowing application designers to concentrate on how their interface performs rather than on the implementation details.

Coupled with ICS' OSF/Motif for Sun workstations, and the Ada/Motif bindings to Motif and the X Window System, BX/Ada users have a powerful Ada development environment which supports most major compilers from Verdix, Alsys and Rational and workstations from Sun, HP, and IBM. (Support for VAX VMS is coming soon.)

The ICS Ada Xcessories have been selected for use within many U.S. government agencies and by companies throughout Europe. In addition, BX/Ada is now available via SASS as well as through most GSA distributors.

Contact: ICS, Integrated Computer Solutions Incorporated. Contact Laurie Packard at ICS (laurie@ics.com or 617-621-0060) for a demonstration, or for more information.

Marketing quote: "ICS is a leading supplier of open, distributed computing products and services. A product selection with ICS gives you the power to create and the freedom to choose."

Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.
Contact: Laurie Packard
201 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA
Ph: (617) 621-0060
Fax: (617) 621-9555


TAE Plus: GUI builder, Motif

The Transportable Applications Environment (TAE) is a Motif GUI development tool which can generate Ada code. It is commercialized byCentury Computing; it was developed at the NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center (Data Systems Technology Division, DSTD).

Contact:
Century Computing
1014 West St
Laurel, MD 20707
USA
phone: (301) 953-3330

For an older version of TAE Plus, contact: COSMIC, listed as a software repository.


Network Broker, by Ideas Inc.

Network Broker brings distributed inter-process communication to Ada. The product is based on a communication innovation called the Virtual Network--a collection of collaborating software agents that present a consistent, network-transparent communication interface to distributed client and server application programs. An enhanced client/server model provides scalable, high-level communication services that directly support server multi-casting, load-sharing, and automatic fail-over. Both synchronous and asynchronous client/server interaction is supported. The generic-based API is completely integrated with Ada and is fully multi-tasking compatible. Virtually any data structure can be communicated, even among heterogenous systems. By providing a communication model that is much closer to the problem domain, Network Broker simplifies and accelerates distributed software development, resulting in a significant cost savings.

Platform supported: SPARC

Contact:
  Ideas Inc.
  7120 Columbia Gateway Drive
  Columbia, MD 21046 USA
  +1 (410) 312-2000
  FAX +1 (410) 312-2050

UNAS: TRW's Universal Network Architecture Services

TRW's UNAS product line is a complete software engineering environment for rapidly building distributed Ada-based (or C++ or Ada/C++) software systems. Used in multiple C3 applications (including Cheyenne Mountain Missile Defense in CO), UNAS is now operational in Air Traffic Control (EUROCONTROL in Europe), communications (CDC in Canada) and Radar applications (Telstar in Australia).

UNAS provides a comprehensive set of re-usable building blocks contained within its CASE Tool and easily accessed for rapid building of complicated networks in a matter of minutes! Architectures may be constructed from high level objects and automatically coded in Ada or C++. High fidelity network simulations may also be created from within the CASE Tool that can easily be piece-meal replaced when actual software modules become available.

UNAS has been in use over 10 years and has been commercially available for over three years. TRW has authorized Rational Software Corporation to also supply the UNAS product line.

UNAS runs on all major workstation platforms including SunOs, Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX, Silicon Graphics IRIX, OpenVMS DEC CMW, Ultrix, Rational APEX, SCO UNIX, 68000 series embedded boards.

Contact: Attn: Race Filarey TRW Inc., 1762 Glenn Curtiss Street, Carson, CA 9087 46
phone: (310) 764-3690
fax: (310) 764-3399
e-mail: Race.Filarey@TRW.com


ASDS: Construction of Simulations

The Ada Simulation Development System (ASDS) is a system for easily and rapidly constructing any conceivable simulation, developed and distributed by McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, Houston Division. ASDS is not a program; rather, it is a way of constructing programs and the fundamental building blocks common to all simulators.


Booch Components: data structures, algorithms, utilities

The Booch components for Ada 83 are available from:

    Wizard Software
    2171 S. Parfet Ct.
    Denver, CO 80227-1913
    USA
or send inquiries to Grady Booch, egb@rational.com

Note that a free Ada 95 version of the Booch components is (still) under development (see the "non-commercial" tools and components).


NAG: numerical components

The Numerical Algorithms Group has created libraries for the solution of mathematical problems. Note that implementations of their Ada library are only available for some specific platforms and compilers.

Page last modified: 1998-02-09