Welcome to Ada 2005. This Rationale should enable those familiar with Ada 95 to gain a basic understanding of the new features introduced into Ada 2005 and the reasons for the changes from Ada 95.

This document starts with an introduction which provides an overview of the changes. There are then a number of major chapters looking at six key areas (OOP, access types, structure and visibility, tasking, general stuff, predefined library and containers) and finally an epilogue largely concerned with compatibility issues.

Earlier versions of individual chapters were previously published in the Ada User Journal as a number of separate papers in the issues from December 2004 until March 2006.

I need to thank all those who have helped in the preparation of this document. First I must acknowledge the help of Ada-Europe and the Ada Resource Association for financial support for attending various meetings. And then I must thank those who reviewed earlier versions. There are almost too many to name, but I must give special thanks to Randy Brukardt, Pascal Leroy and Tucker Taft of the ARG, to my colleagues on the UK Ada Panel (BSI/IST/5/-/9), and to James Moore of WG9.

I am especially grateful for a brilliant suggestion of Randy Brukardt which must be preserved for the pleasure of future generations. He suggested that this document when completed be called the Ada Language Enhancement Guide. This means that if combined with the final Ada Reference Manual, the whole document can then be referred to as the ARM and ALEG. Thanks Randy.

I must also thank Randy for his efforts in creating a version of this Rationale for the web and especially for creating an extremely valuable index which is incorporated here.

Writing this rationale has been a learning experience for me and I trust that readers will also find the material useful in learning about Ada 2005. An integrated description of Ada 2005 as a whole including some further examples will be found in a forthcoming version of the textbook [13].

John Barnes
Caversham
England
March 2006

© 2005, 2006 John Barnes Informatics.

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