Ada Programming Language

Ada, a programming language that resulted from an initiative of the US Department of Defense to develop a language for embedded and real-time systems, encourages modern software engineering principles. It is primarily used for safety-critical applications like airplanes, missile control systems, and nuclear plants. Hence, a large number of compile-time and run-time checks exist to permit the design of very large, full-bodied software systems.

Ada programs are organized in packages, or modularity mechanisms, which are either predefined or self-created. Ada offers such features as exception handling, generics, object-oriented, and parallel processing, with concurrency and real-time tools built directly into the language. With a language resembling the English language, the logic is also simple; the variables, types, and sub-program declarations are written into the specification file, and the code for the procedures and functions are written to an implementation file.

The supported compile and run-time checks help avoid bugs, such as unallocated memory and buffer overflow errors, that would normally not be detectable in some other programming languages until actual run-time; and potential deadlocks are, in most cases, detected due to concurrency being a part of the programming specification. Additionally, Ada’s memory management is high-level and type-safe; meaning dynamic memory allocation and deallocation must be explicitly declared access types. It is for these reasons, among many others, that Ada is widely used in critical systems where irregularities cannot be afforded, as serious consequences may result.

Works Cited

Sammet, Jean E. "Why Ada Is Not Just Another Programming Language." Communications Of The ACM

29.8 (1986): 722-732. Business Source Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.

Wong, William. "Make A Contract With Your Programming Language." Microwaves & RF 51.7 (2012):

S12-S14. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.

Abbott, Russell J., and Ellis Horowitz. "Program Design By Informal English

Descriptions." Communications Of The ACM 26.11 (1983): 882-894. Business Source Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.