An ungainly name, is "Ada 9X"
Could anyone picture that name up in lights,
A more resonant sound is "Ada 94"
Or possibly - "Ada 95" -
Either way, the team planned not to fail -
Jinny called Chris in July '88.
She went to work and made decisions,
The DR's joined the following Spring,
Meetings were often about to unravel,
Numerous problems endangered the quest,
Audrey and company arranged them in groups,
Then, clarity emerged from chaos and fluff,
The first major issue was OOP.
The argument lasted for many days.
Folks used to say that "Ada's too large."
He simplified rules, and worked with great vigor,
The Reference Manual for Ada 9X
But not to worry - enjoy and relax -
The list of reserved words has six that are new,
Tuck added some features - clearly eye-catching
And types that are "tagged," allowing the masses
The world's more secure since he elected
He led us away from spaghetti, anarchical,
And callbacks can now be coded by amateurs,
When asked to explain, team members will say,
The UI teams tried out the new features.
David and company applied Methods Formal,
The team greeted these like so many dragons.
Momentous decisions, they could not ignore,
Finalization refinements were clearly a must,
The DR discussions, as mentioned before,
A common occurrence in meetings like that
In he would roll with rumbles and squeals,
The fate of proposals tended to rest
Anthony silently endured the name "Tony"
The team got lucky in '92
Meetings were hosted in places quite rare.
John Barnes began tossing paper airplanes around
Lennart and Björn prepared for that;
Jean-Pierre, in Paris, will always remember
Rudolf, in Frankfort, helped them to dine
Joyce, the world traveler, wishing not to be rude,
In Portsmouth, Kit hosted a dinner sublime;
Through the standards quagmire they'd still be careening,
And who can forget Mark's buttermilk fit,
Norm suggested a wonderful thing.
We all should apply it regularly.
So Chris and her team endured and outlasted
Government Advisors kept everyone straight
Government lawyers were mentally bereft
And DoD brass felt an aversion
Fran, and then Robin, coped with office specifics -
After thousands of miles and notes by e-mail.
While she's glad it is ending, she has feelings complex;
And when they have scattered, who knows what they'll do.
So, their gift to the world - not to be over-hyped -
An ISO Standard - the first you will see -
If that's not enough for the programming masses,
Now the team has arrived at the end of their quest.
It lacks a degree of excitement or sex.
If Chris tried to sell the movie rights?
To that, one could set a musical score.
A language name that could survive.
Nor merely survive - they shall prevail!
Sucker that she was, she took the bait.
On plans for mapping and revisions.
And lively debates became "the thing."
But Erhard controlled by pounding his gavel.
Like the 750th Revision Request.
Keeping them free of endless loops.
In Requirements written by John Goodenough.
Was it merely a fad, or a golden key?
Then Chris decided - OOP stays.
She fixed that by putting Tucker in charge.
And gave us a language that's ten percent bigger.
Grew larger and larger with each new Annex.
Each brings new goodies, without new syntax.
Like "abstract" and "aliased," "until" and "requeue."
Such as polymorphic run-time dispatching,
To build up some dandy derivation classes.
To add in some types that are safely "protected."
Into the land of libraries, hierarchical.
With subprogram accesses passed as parameters.
"It's really quite simple: Tucker wants it that way."
Found some delights, and some wild creatures.
To find lurking dangers in places abnormal.
They slew each in turn, then circled the wagons.
Like the ban of the trailing_underscore.
From "duplicate" to "split" and "split" to "adjust."
Were full of debate, and seldom a bore.
Was the noisy arrival of Robert of GNAT.
Pulling his suitcase and computer on wheels.
On whether they passed his "rubbish" test.
But call Robert "Bob" and you're full of bologna.
When the ISO Delegates joined the crew.
But Chris "can't take them anywhere!"
In a posh Swiss restaurant Alfred had found.
In Sweden, they handed each one a hard hat.
How they failed to distinguish the restrooms by gender.
As he taught them the pleasures of fine German wine.
Tried not to notice local swimmers were nude.
And they used the right spoons - most of the time.
If not for Brave Bob's expert convening.
Norm's good humor, or Bevin's dry wit?
"Pragma Silver Bullet" had a nice ring.
It asserts that the program is problem free.
Three AJPO Directors - a result not forecasted.
By reminding the team not to be late.
By the strange new concept of "Copyleft."
To words like GNU and GNAT and recursion.
Mass mailings, phone calls, and Chris' hieroglyphics.
Chris claims to be weary of all the travail.
She will "terribly miss" her "family-9X"
But one thing is certain -- they'll miss her too!
Is a language both readable and strongly typed.
To support distribution and OOP.
It will call into question their inheritance classes.
Ada 9X is finished, and it's simply THE BEST.
The Bard of Ada 9X
10 November 1994