[GAP] Fall 2007 GAP e-newsletter

[Kathy Fairlamb]

CONTENTS

1. ADA INTERN PROGRAM
2. ADA GEM OF THE WEEK
3. GNAT GPL FOR VISTA
4. NEW PUBLICATIONS
5. UPCOMING EVENTS
6. SPOTLIGHT ON THE UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART
7. NEW MEMBERS

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1. ADA INTERN PROGRAM

The new look Ada Intern Program is finally online!

Your students can now sign themselves up to the program directly when 
they go to download GNAT GPL from the Libre site at 
https://libre.adacore.com/.

The aim of the program is to help students looking to explore the 
possibilities of a career using Ada by enabling them to access offers of 
internships from AdaCore customers. As teachers, you will still have the 
possibility of accessing the program through GNAT Tracker, but the 
actual task of posting available applicants now lies with the students 
themselves.

We hope you will encourage your students to take part in the program and 
will shortly be sending you a poster to provide more 
information for students. We'd be grateful if you could put one up on your 
departmental noticeboard or hand them out to students at the start of term.

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2. ADA GEM OF THE WEEK

You can now start every week by learning something new about Ada (or at 
least refreshing your memory!) with the Ada Gem of the Week series at 
http://www.adacore.com/home/ada_answers/. Designed to provide short, 
interesting insights into the lesser known possibilities of the 
language, topics covered so far include limited types, PWM position 
control for radiocontrol servos, key-based searching in set containers, 
Ada 2005 interfaces, numeric literals and factory funtions.

We've already had the pleasure of publishing one contribution to the 
series from Michael Gonzalez Harbour at the University of Cantabria, 
Spain, and would welcome more contributions from GAP members (I am told 
they are quick and fun to prepare!).

Send your contributions to gems at adacore.com

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3. GNAT FOR MICROSOFT VISTA

We've had several queries regarding whether the current GNAT GPL version 
suports Vista. The answer is no, for the time being. However, we're 
working hard to have this platform supported next year with the GNAT GPL 
2008 version. Watch this space...

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4. NEW PUBLICATIONS IN 2007

Two new publications by GAP members have recently been added to the 
Contributions section of GNAT Tracker. Send details of your books, papers and 
teaching materials to miranda at adacore.com.

- 'Concurrent and Real-Time Programming in Ada 2005', Alan Burns & Andy 
Wellings (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

- 'Ada Plus Data Structures: An Object Oriented Approach', Second 
Edition, Nell B Dale, PhD and John W. McCormick (Jones & Bartlett, 2006)

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5. UPCOMING EVENTS

Still to come in 2007:

Ada Conference, UK, September 25, 2007, Manchester, UK
http://www.ada-uk-conference.co.uk/
I'm sure you've all had it in your diaries for months, and now it's just 
around the corner. AdaCore is again lead sponsor. 

And to look forward to in 2008:

- Ada Europe 2008, June 16-20, 2008, Venice, Italy
http://www.math.unipd.it/ae2008/
Deadline for paper proposals: Nov 4, 2007

- ITiCSE, June 30 - July 2, 2008, Madrid, Spain
http://www.iticse08.fi.upm.es/
Deadline for paper proposals: Jan 18, 2008
Looking forward to seeing some of our Spanish members defend the Ada 
corner here. Let us know if you plan to attend.

- SAFECOMP, September 22-25, 2008, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
http://www.safecomp2008.org/
Deadline for paper abstracts: Feb 1, 2008
This event has had good attendance from UK universities in the past, so 
it would be great to see a UK GAP member present a paper on the 
advantages of Ada for safety critical software development.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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6. SPOTLIGHT ON .... THE UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART

At the University of Stuttgart, Germany, Ada is the first programming 
language taught to incoming students of Computer Science, Software 
Engineering, Mathematics, Automation Technology, and several other 
disciplines as part of their year-long introduction to practical 
Computer Science and to programming.

Additionally, Ada is the language of choice for several advanced courses 
in Software Engineering, compiler construction and real-time 
programming.  Naturally, it also plays a role in courses that involve 
comparative studies of language semantics or implementation.
In one research group, Ada is the main language for both student and 
advanced research projects centered on the maintenance and enhancement 
of a system with about one million lines of Ada code.

Erhard Ploedereder says, "Ada was chosen as the primary language because 
it allowed explaining different paradigms within a single language, 
integrated a competent concurrency model, and had good and freely 
available infrastructure. Students agree that they can more easily 
migrate into other languages, such as C++ or Java, having been educated 
with the well-designed constructs of Ada in their introductory courses."

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7. NEW MEMBERS!!

And finally, 2007 has seen a continued steady growth of the GAP 
community, which now stands at around 150 members, from 134 schools and 
universities in 28 countries. A particular welcome to our newest members:

ETSI Telecomunicacion, Valladolid, Spain
Katholieke Hogeschool Brugge - Oostende (KHBO), Belgium
Military University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
Penn State Harrisburg - Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA
Swinburne University of Technology - Victoria, Australia
Universidad Tecnologica del la Mixteca - Oaxaca, Mexico
Universit� des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, France
University of Almeria, Spain
University of Arizona - Tucson, Arizona, USA
University of Macau, China
University of North Alabama - Florence, Alabama, USA

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