Programming the Internet in Ada 95

Abstract

A new paradigm for computing is emerging based on the Internet and the World Wide Web, accompanied by a new standard programming platform based on the Java(tm) technology recently announced by Sun Microsystems [4]. The Java technology includes the definition for a platform-independent byte code representation for small applications called applets, which allows Java-enabled Web browsers to download and execute these Java applets using a byte code interpreter. Although the Java byte-code representation was designed specifically for the new Java language, it turns out that the underlying semantic models of Ada 95 and Java are sufficiently similar that a very direct mapping from Ada 95 to Java byte codes is possible. We at Intermetrics are in the process of adapting our Ada 95 compiler front end to generate Java byte codes directly, thereby allowing the development of Java-compatible applets in Ada 95. This paper explains our approach, and provides details on the mapping from Ada 95 features to Java byte codes, as well as the mapping from certain Java features to Ada 95. We have found the combination of the Ada 95 and Java technologies to be very natural and powerful, providing the best characteristics of both technologies, with essentially no loss in functionality.