About the Ada Home

Mission

The mission of the Ada Home Web site is to provide a Home to the Brave Ada Programmers (hence its name), where they will find systematic help to

be productive with Ada (Resources),
learn and teach Ada (Discovery),
make and prove the case for Ada (Ammunition),
tap into the Internet (Network),
and relax (Picture Gallery, Rogues Gallery, ...).

The Ada Home is designed to be the world-wide web information source for Ada and Ada-related issues. We are continuing to develop the Ada Home and intend to make it the hub of the Ada community.

Why Is The Background Green?

Because we like it :-) ... and ...

The greenish background color of the Ada Home pages is a tribute to the origins of the language. Some history:

In the 1970's, the US DoD realized that having software for embedded computers developed and maintained in hundreds of (sometimes proprietary, and often obsolete) programming languages was excessively costly. Requirements were established for a high-level language that could be used in all defense projects, and 23 existing languages were formally reviewed; none met the requirements (note: AT&T requested that C not be reviewed because it was clearly not suitable). It was therefore concluded that a new language was needed.
Based on 20 language proposals made by design teams coming from various places in the world, four contractors were selected to produce prototype, color-coded languages (Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow). Finally, one was chosen: Green, developed by a Honeywell/Bull team located in Louveciennes, near Paris, France; the principal designer was Jean Ichbiah.
This modern, high-level programming language was named Ada, in honor of the first programmer in history: Lady Ada Lovelace.
In the 1990's, the language was revised to remove some limitations encountered by its users over the previous decade. The result, Ada 95, incorporated object-oriented programming and interfaces to other languages, among many improvements; the principal designer of the revision was S. Tucker Taft.

If you don't want power-lusting bureaucrats to dictate what you may or may not read and write, consider expressing approval of the Blue Ribbon Anti-Censorship Campaign --it's about our freedom of expression, electronic and otherwise.

To be safe from criminals (wherever they may be seated), Protect Privacy Online: Join the Golden Key Campaign.

Page last modified: 1998-02-05