Developing With Ada: Life-Cycle Methods

First Edition / First Printing per complete number line including number one. Hard cover with glossy colored pictorial boards in near fine condition. Interior text block clean & tight; no writings, no markings noted. Charts, diagrams, flowcharts throughout the text. Concludes with Appendix A, Appendix B, and a comprehensive Index. * For the avid computer programmer and system developer: a look at the state of the art of computer programming and systems development as developed and practiced in the 1990s. A piece of the work and effort upon which the current day state of the art of programming and development stands. From the Preface by the author, written in 1992, "Over the last several decades, computer hardware has made tremendous strides in capability. Technologies that were unimaginable seem to proliferate almost overnight. Hardware engineers have appeared to effectively and rapidly design systems that harness these emerging technologies. Unfortunately, software engineering has not kept pace. In recent years, however, a software language has been developed to provide a state-of-the-art development platform for software engineers. This language is named Ada, in honor of Ada Lovelace. . .Many software engineers, computer scientists, and university faculty make deprecating remarks about Ada and its capabilities. After having employed a wide range of languages for real-time system development (assembly, Fortran, Cobol, and C), I decided to give Ada a try. Several years later, I implemented a complex, distributed, embedded Ada system (the Lightweight Helicopter Target Acquisition system described in the text) under an extremely short schedule. At the end of this development I came to several important conclusions: If properly used, Ada stands head and shoulders above other languages that I had used in the past; Knowing how to use Ada properly is nontrivial; Ada can be used for development of real-time systems under short schedules; Ada is the language of preference for real-time system development; and I should capture my experiences regarding proper usage and potential abuses of Ada. For these reasons, this book was developed. . . . ".…