ASIS Standardization Announcement/Acknowledgements

The ASIS International Standard Is Available

ISO/IEC 15291:1999
Information technology — Programming languages — Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS)

The Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) Ballot on ASIS was approved on 8 December 1998. Twenty-three Nations voted to approve ASIS as an International Standard (there were 0 nations voting for disapproval and 7 nations abstained). The publication date of the ASIS Standard is May 1999.

There are a number of talented people who have worked very hard to get ASIS to where it is today. We are indebted to the ASIS Working Group (ASISWG) and ASIS Rapporteur Group (ASISRG) members who spent many hours evolving an ASIS for Ada 83 to an ASIS for Ada 95. We are indebted to the work of the National reviewers who provided excellent comments, which have resulted in a significantly improved ASIS specification for the Ada community. We are indebted to the many who helped resolve these issues. We are indebted to those in SC22 and ISO who worked close with us for standardization. These creators, reviewers, resolvers and facilitators included: Cheryl Barbasch, Gary Barnes, John Barnes, Bill Beckwith, Roy Bell, Jim Bladen, Steve Blake, Alex Blakemore, Keith Brannon, David Brookman, Ben Brosgol, Gary Bundy, Vincent Celier, Dave Clark, Richard Conn, Dan Cooper, John Dawes, Robert Dewar, Bill Eastman, Bob Ekman, Dan Ehrenfried, Dan Eilers, Magnus Ericson, Arthur Evans, Dan Fisher, Herm Fischer, Vasiliy Fofanov, Mark Gerhardt, Wesley Hair, Hal Hart, Peter Hermann, Chuck Hobin, Maretta Holden, Bob Hokanson, Rick Hudson, Kiyoshi Ishihata, Jesper Joergensen, Bjorn Kallberg, Magnus Kempe, Allan Kopp, Alexei Kuchumov, Alain Le Guennec, Janusz Laski, Robert Leif, Pascal Leroy, Jim Longers, Ole Oest, Stefan Landherr, Bob Mathis, Steve Michell, Jim Moore, Peter Obermayer, Bertrand Petitprez, Michael Pickett, Erhard Ploedereder, Ron Price, Gil Prine, Bill Pritchett, Bill Rinehuls, Dan Rittersdorf, Clyde Roby, Sergey Rybin, Tom Shields, Steen Silberg, John Solomond, John Spangler, David Spenhoff, Doug Smith, Tom Strelich, Alfred Strohmeier, Joyce Tokar, Bill Thomas, Kevin Tucker, Luba Vladavsky, Mickey White, Brian Wichmann, John Wiley, Steve Ziegler, Eugene Zueff, and many others.

A very, very special thanks to those who served in key positions in making ASIS happen these folks are: Currie Colket (ASISWG Chair/ASISRG Chair), Dr. Tom Shields (first ASISWG Chair), Steve Blake (ASISWG Vice Chair; ASISRG Co-Editor), Clyde Roby (ASISWG Recorder; ASISRG Co-Editor), Dan Cooper (ASISWG Vice-Recorder), Dr. Bill Thomas (ASISWG Vice Chair for Publicity/Meetings), Gary Barnes (ASISWG Archivist), Cheryl Barbasch (Active Member), Dr. Robert Dewar (Active member), Jesper Joergensen (Active Member), Dan Rittersdorf (Active Lurker), Dr. Sergey Rybin (Active Member), Steen Silberg (Active Member), Professor Alfred Strohmeier (Active Member), and Dr. Joyce Tokar (Active Member). Several monumental efforts should be recognized: Gary Barnes, Steve Blake, Sergey Rybin and Joyce Tokar rapidly brought ASIS into the Rational, AONIX, DDC-I, and ACT environments. The development of these ASIS implementations by different vendors concurrent with the development of the ASIS specification was vitally important to the standardization of ASIS. The efforts of Dan Cooper, Dan Rittersdorf, and Bill Thomas in addressing issues from the user perspective is particularly noteworthy. Clyde Roby and Steve Blake did a fantastic job as technical editors. A very special thanks goes to Clyde Roby who is truly a wizard at generating a large technical document and making the World Wide Web effective for the dissemination of ASIS information via the ASIS Home Page. His work in providing ASIS and the Resolution of Editorial and Technical Comments on the ASIS Home Page was vital to the success of ASIS. I would like to thank Professor Richard Conn for insuring the latest ASIS versions have been on the Public Ada Library (PAL) CD-ROMs. And yes, a very special thanks goes to Dan Ehrenfried whose idea for the LRM interfaces in the 1980s mushroomed into ASIS.

As the ASIS interface has been a totally volunteer effort since 1989, ASIS happened because a number of key organizations recognized the value of cooperation and committed their resources to benefit the entire Ada community. These key organizations are: ACT, Ada_Med, Aonix, Boeing, CACI, Celsius Tech Naval Systems, Concurrent Computer Corporation, DCS Corporation, DDC-I, Defense Science and Technology Organization, EDS, GRC, Hughes Aircraft, IDA, Intermetrics, Irvine Compiler Corporation, Little Tree Consulting, Lockheed-Martin, Magnavox, Mark V Systems, Maurya Software, Meiji University, MITRE, Moscow State University, National Physical Laboratory, New York University, Oakland University, Objective Interface Systems, Odyssey Research Associates, Peregrine Systems, Praxis Critical Systems, Rational Software, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Texas Instruments, UNISYS, Universitaet Stuttgart, Uppsala University, U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Navy.

A special thanks goes the Ada Joint Program Office (specially Dr. John Solomond and Dr. Charles Engle), the WG9 convenors (Mr. James Moore and Dr. Robert Mathis), the ACM SIGAda chairs (specially Mr. Mark Gerhardt, Mr. Hal Hart and Mr. Ben Brosgol), and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) (specially Mr. Phillip Andrews and Mr. Carl Andriani), who recognized the code analysis value of ASIS to assess the quality of software for mission-critical and safety-critical applications, and consequently encouraged my participation on this very important interface.

It was a distinct pleasure of mine to work with a highly professional and cooperative team dedicated to producing a powerful interface to the Ada compilation environment. Thank you all for producing a product which will benefit the entire Ada community.

Currie Colket
Chair ASISWG/ASISRG
colket@acm.org
+1 (703) 883-7381