What was and in
The Ada Home -- 1995

[What kind of descriptions will you find here?]

December 1995

Update of the information on Ada 95, including a poem... For money or fame, enter the Ada Lovelace Programming Contest!
Note: this contest was later cancelled.

The online Ada papers section has new papers, including the winner of the "Best Paper Award" at TRI-Ada'95. More bindings listed. To help you locate changes in HBAP, two icons are contaminating the pages... (new or updated items will retain their icons for one to two months).

"Remember December 10, 1815, was Ada's birthday. All programmers should celebrate that day as a special holiday. Since the anniversary is a Sunday this year, it should be easy to come up with something special to do. Then next year, tell your boss you should have the day off as a programmers' holiday." -- Bob Mathis

Some "Lady Lovelace Anniversary" updates in the "free" compilers pages, and a major update of the Lovelace tutorial (created by David Wheeler; now at version 5.0). Additions in the examples and non-commercial tools sections.

November 1995

I'm back! TRI-Ada was fun; the atmosphere was more encouraging than last year (no more "doom and gloom", probably because the first Ada 95 compilers have been validated :-). If you missed it, first mark your calendar for next year (early December 1996, in Philadelphia, see the conference calendar), then read a Trip Report and the messages recorded from the experimental "live TRI-Ada'95 mailing-list" (linked from the past conference calendar).

More online Ada papers available. Miscellaneous corrections, essentially links that were out-of-date.

Peter Coffee--of PC Week--was an invited speaker during the closing session of TRI-Ada'95; he clearly values Ada. See his Nov. 27 PC Week column "Soft Talk", near the end (four last paragraphs): hard facts confirming what we informally knew and said for years, i.e. that Ada is more cost-effective and more reliable than C. (The unnamed company is Verdix, now part of Rational; the study was described in a TRI-Ada'95 talk. I don't know where or when it will be published.) The next thing that needs to be widely published is that most people who claim to work with C++ are merely feeding C code to their C++ compilers.

October 1995

Nothing is going to happen this month: I'm away until November 13.

(And indeed nothing happened to HBAP. Elsewhere, Bill Watterson announced that he will retire at the end of this year; that means no more "Calvin and Hobbes" in the newspapers. For solace, Dilbert is online :-)

September 1995

Added a full keyword search to the online Ada 95 HTML-Hypertext Reference Manual (this service is based on WAIS; it is not yet available in the packaged, downloadable version).

HBAP now has three entry points:

• the usual, but slightly shortened, Ada Home WWW Server page;
• for newcomers, a Welcome to the Home of the Brave Ada Programmers page (to become a Guided Tour of the site); and
• for seasoned users, the Quick Access page.

Added a separate ISO WG9 page, by request of Bob Mathis (convenor). Updated and extended the coverage of the Ada-related Associations and SIGs page. Update of the Lovelace tutorial (created by David Wheeler; now at version 4.5). The annotated list of textbooks (maintained by Mike Feldman) is now, according to Xanadu terminology, transcluded.

August 1995

Added an HBAP Feedback form. You ought to use it. (Or do you really think feedback is worthless?) Many fixes and corrections in HBAP are entirely the result of the feedback received from Brave Browsers. Finally created an About HBAP page.

Update of the List of Ada Articles in Trade Magazines (contributed by Paul Pukite). Very high-level of satisfaction with Ada as CS1 language, (rated best by teachers not using Pascal). Update of the HBAP entry page; two alternative entry pages are forthcoming (one for quick access and one to welcome new users).

Update of the Lovelace tutorial (created by David Wheeler; version 4.4). Update of the FAQ to help C/C++ programmers understand and love Ada (contributed by Simon Johnston). A selection of primers to learn "netiquette" and instructions for accessing comp.lang.ada by email. More examples of Ada code. News in the cheap and "free" compiler pages. More online Ada papers (have you submitted your papers?).

Local HBAP installation of the hypertext RM 83 (the original at SAIC disappeared). Moved the sections on textbooks and Ada as a foundation programming language in academia (both maintained by Mike Feldman).

There have been close to 600'000 hits on HBAP in almost 18 months of operation. Usage is now fairly regular, with an average of 50 to 60 thousand hits per month. The most popular pages so far are:

• Lovelace tutorial home page (>10000 hits),
• References (>9000 hits),
• Compilers and Vendors (>7000 hits),
• Ada 95 Hypertext Reference Manual --TOC (>7000 hits),
• Software Repositories (>6000 hits), and
• Tools and Components (>4000 hits).

June 1995

Updated the list of Ada compiler vendors. Major update of the FAQ to help C/C++ programmers understand and love Ada. Updates of the sections on textbooks and Ada as a foundation programming language in academia.

May 1995

There is now a HyperCard version of the reference manual (produced by Paul Gorman); see the References section. Update of the Lovelace tutorial. Additional tools: conversion from source code to a web of HTML files, and an Ada-to-C binding generator. Added a story about Astrophysical modelling using Ada. Two new books announced, both written by Alan Burns and Andy Wellings.

April 1995

More papers in the Online Ada Papers section. Updated the ACVC information in the References section (contributed by Nelson Weiderman). Updated the help for C/C++ programmers who would like to understand and love Ada.

March 1995

One year ago, 3 March 1994:
Official announcement of the Home of the Brave Ada Programmers
(HBAP Ada WWW server)
There have been more than 300'000 hits in one year. Usage has steadily increased, with a total of more than 70'000 hits in March 1995 -- compare to 7'500 hits in March 1994!

The hypertext version of the Ada 95 Reference Manual (final version 6.0) is finally online. The hypertext Ada 95 Reference Manual and Rationale, as well as the hypertext Ada 83 Reference Manual, are downloadable by FTP; check the References section. In the same section, added a link to a very nice set of documents describing and cross-referencing the syntax rules of Ada 95, illustrated with syntactic diagrams ("syntax as railroad maps" :-). Added an ammo section to help C/C++ programmers understand and love Ada (contributed by Simon Johnston). Added information about Ada UK (contributed by Simon Johnston) in the section on National Ada SIGs.

February 1995

Re-organized the References section. New repository registered: AdaBasis. Added a tutorials section (based on info assembled by David Wheeler). Added PDI, an example in the examples section (contributed by David Wheeler). The Ada 95 Rationale is now available in hypertext format (contributed by Laurent Guerby). Updated lots of URLs because the AdaIC moved to a new host address and revised its FTP directory structure.

January 1995

Added a free online Ada 95 tutorial: Lovelace (written by David Wheeler). Reorganized the section on books, articles, and bibliographies (in the resources section). Added Programming with Ada FAQ. Various improvements on the front door.

Page last modified: 1999-01-03