Programming language named after ealy computing
pioneer Ada Lovelace. The language was
designed by the
American Department of Defense. It was created with a set of
specifications which were gradually
refined. These specifications were named
Strawman,
Woodenman,
Tinman,
Ironman, and finally
Steelman. A
contest was held between the
seventeen potential candidates, all based on
Pascal. These were narrowed down to
four, then
two '
finals', and finally, in 1979, one of them became Ada.
Ada programs, rather than being one large program with several subprograms as in Pascal, consist of several large software components known as packages. Ada has many basic data types, including boolean and character strings. While it gained much support due to its backing by the Department of Defense, it is virtually unused today.