From: alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: ASIS (Was Re: IrisAda)
Date: 21 Jan 93 18:37:41 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

In article <C16CKG.Eq8@inews.Intel.COM> csripras@hopi.intel.com (Chak Sriprasad) writes: 
> IrisAda translates Ada programs into Iris, a semantically-based
> internal form. It was listed by a company called Incremental Systems 
> Corporation in Pittsburgh. When I called the listed number I get the
> message that it is disconnected with no further information available.
> Does anyone have any information on this tool?

Another alternative you may consider is ASIS, the Ada Semantic Interface Specification.
ASIS is intended to provide a standard interface to the compiled representation
in an Ada library for tool builders and others.  The ASIS working group charter
was accepted by SigAda recently as an official SigAda working group.
The current ASIS specification (version 1.0) is available from ajpo.sei.cmu.edu.
It draws heavily from Rational's LRM interfaces and is very easy to use.

There are 2 electronic mailing lists for ASIS - a low volume information and
announcement group and a higher volume issues group which is a superset of the first.
asis-info@stars.reston.paramax.com (ASIS Working Group Info)
asis@stars.reston.paramax.com (ASIS Working Group)
add a -request before the @ to contact the list administrator to join.
The next ASIS working group meeting is in February at Telesoft's San Diego offices.

ASIS 1.1 which is currently a draft proposal is a (non radical) evolution of 1.0,
filling in some holes and documenting behavior more rigorously.
ASIS 2.0 will support Ada9X and some version of ASIS 2.X will hopefully be
endorsed by international standards organizations.

Currently, Telesoft is the only vendor offering an ASIS interface as a product I believe.
Rational LRM interfaces are very similar, and I believe they will have an ASIS product soon.
Other vendors are either working on them or watching developments.
The GNAT project seem to be planning an ASIS interface, but they haven't made
any formal commitment to my knowledge (probably have the hands full at the moment:)
If you want it today, call Telesoft.

Both Telesoft and Rational have donated substantial time and money to this effort,
but other vendors have been paying attention.

In any case, if it is at all important to you to get access to compiled Ada, contact
your favorite compiler vendors and let them know you want an ASIS interface.
This can benefit us all by making tools possible (both technically and economically)
that were not previously. Even little tools that you whip up to support
your projects specialized needs - not just large generaly purpose CASE tools.
But the compiler vendors may not invest if they don't believe their customers care
about this - the return seems remote to some - ASIS -> tools available -> more compilers sold.
Once it catches on with the major vendors as a standard and tools start
to require it, the remaining compiler vendors will have incentive to invest in ASIS.
So if you want a large variety of high quality Ada support tools to choose from,
convince compiler vendor to implement ASIS - (possibly by letting them know you
would consider paying some reasonable amount for it). 

And if you (government people especially) want to really help Ada succeed,
fund ASIS development. This is a good example of where government should be involved -
a standardization process that will benefit the entire Ada industry building infrastructure.
No one vendor should set the standard for the others to follow, or be expected
to fund all the costs of the standard development (as opposed to an implementation).
Private industry can share the costs, but the government can really help Ada by
spending a small amount to help ASIS get off to a solid start.




-- 
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Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada