Ada - 20 Years After the Mandate

Hamilton, J., & Pape, P. R. (2017). Ada - 20 Years After the Mandate. Crosstalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering. 30(1).

In January 1997, the first author was seconded from the U.S. Military Faculty to serve as the chief of the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO). The spring of 1997 was very eventful for the AJPO and DoD support of Ada. By May 1996, there were well-founded rumors that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) intended to discontinue supporting the Ada support activities of the AJPO. The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council made a compelling case for continued support of Ada and the AJPO in their significant work entitled “Ada and Beyond.” (“Ada and Beyond” may be downloaded for free from the National Academies Press at http://www.nap.edu/download/5463#.) On April 29, 1997, Lieutenant General Emmett Paige, Jr., ended the policy mandate requiring use of the Ada programming language.