Overview of the Ada Computer Language Competition (1979)
9 comments
·May 21, 2025kevlar700
7thaccount
I believe it was both:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Order_Language_Working_...
The High Order Language Working Group came up with the requirements.
askvictor
How funny, I was just talking about and researching Ada at work this afternoon, while discussing what the best language for safety critical embedded systems would be
synack
There’s more detail about the language proposals and their merits here: (very large PDF) https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/trecms/pdf/ADB950587.pdf
pixelesque
Heh.
"We did not have enough time to do a thorough analysis. The languages arrived at WHMI on February 21 and were on my desk on February 22. To insure the analysis is on your desk by March 13, we have to mail our report on March 8. That gives us fourteen days (counting weekends) to read the languages and work on the analysis. Figure two days to read and understand a language. We have used eight days. Another three days are used to write a report and solicit comments, and one day is lost typing. That leaves two days to analyze the four languages. Even if we had a thousand computer scientists doing the analysis, we could have only scratched the surface of these designs. Two hundred and seventy women can not have a baby in a day."
jakeisnotadog1
null
tgv
Useful, as the site seems overloaded, but that link only says "Welcome to nginx".
null
Interestingly Co-Pilot gets it wrong and states Ada was designed by committees instead of being multiple competitive processes. How misunderstood Ada is.
https://copilot.microsoft.com/shares/Jp9AmNHMEJzNmcbiu1VNx
https://copilot.microsoft.com/shares/vUjdaDh4mXvj1fm4cyt15