AdaCore Implements New Ada Standard

NEW YORK, NY - AdaCore today announced the first implementation of the upcoming new version of the Ada programming language. Known as Ada 2005 and anticipated for official international standardization under ISO next year, the new definition advances the state-of-the-art in programming language design while meeting the goal of compatibility with earlier versions of Ada.

"AdaCore is leading the way with Ada 2005," said Robert Dewar, president of AdaCore. "Many of the new features will make our customers' programming jobs simpler, and the language’s integration of object-oriented and concurrency facilities is truly innovative. By officially including the Ravenscar tasking profile, Ada 2005 will help users write portable high-integrity programs. Of course, because of Ada 2005's high degree of upward compatibility, our customers can use our latest development tools not only for the new Ada language version, but also for Ada 95 and Ada 83."

AdaCore has implemented many of Ada 2005's enhancements, including Java-like interfaces, 32-bit character support, and new standard libraries. These are currently available in the GNAT Pro development environment, as well as in the GNAT edition for the GNAT Academic Program (GAP). Aimed at spreading the use of Ada for teaching and research, GAP is an AdaCore initiative within the academic community. Ada 2005 offers many advantages as a language in computer science education, and the GAP program makes it easier for universities to bring Ada into their curricula. Many of the new features in the revision are also available in the GNAT GPL 2005 Edition, intended for Free Software developers.

About Ada
Ada is a modern programming language designed for large, long-lived applications - and embedded systems in particular - where reliability and efficiency are essential. It was originally developed in the early 1980s (generally known as Ada 83) and then revised and enhanced in an upward compatible fashion in the mid 1990s under the auspices of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The resulting language, Ada 95, was the first internationally standardized Object-Oriented Language and is currently seeing significant usage worldwide in the high-integrity / high-performance domains, including commercial and military aircraft avionics, air traffic control, railroad systems, and medical devices. Ada also serves as an excellent teaching language for both introductory and advanced computer science courses, and has been the subject of significant university research, particularly in the area of real-time technologies.

About Ada 2005
Ada 2005 offers a number of new capabilities while meeting the requirement of compatibility with Ada 95. Reflecting advances in Object-Oriented technology over the past decade, the language's enhancements include a Java-like interface mechanism and a syntax for inheritance that prevents accidental overloading. The needs of the real-time and high-integrity communities have been addressed; support in these areas include new task control mechanisms and the definition of the Ravenscar tasking profile in the standard. Additionally, Ada 2005 expands the predefined library (including generic "container" packages that improve upon C++'s STL) and makes a number of improvements in the access type area.

About AdaCore
Founded in 1994, AdaCore is the leading provider of commercial, open-source software solutions for Ada, a modern programming language designed for large, long-lived applications where reliability, efficiency and safety are absolutely critical. AdaCore's flagship product is GNAT Pro, the commercial-grade open-source Ada development environment, which comes with expert online support and is available on more platforms than any other Ada technology. AdaCore has customers worldwide; see http://www.adacore.com/home/company/customers for more information.

Use of Ada and GNAT Pro continues to grow in high-integrity and safety-critical applications, including commercial and defense aircraft avionics, air traffic control, railroad systems, financial services and medical devices. AdaCore has North American headquarters in New York and European headquarters in Paris. www.adacore.com

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