Introduction to Ada: The Powerhouse for Critical Systems
The Birth of a Reliable Giant In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. Department of Defense embarked on a mission to create a unified programming language for embedded systems, particularly those used in military applications such as aircraft, tanks, and missiles. This endeavor gave birth to Ada, a language named in honor of Ada Lovelace, often considered the world’s first computer programmer. Why Ada? Ada was not designed to be a universal language but rather a specialized tool for critical systems where reliability and safety are paramount....