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Define the word Ada

ADA
     n : an enzyme found in mammals that can catalyze the deamination
         of adenosine into inosine and ammonia; "ADA deficiency
         can lead to one form of severe combined immunodeficiency
         disease"; "the gene encoding ADA was one of the earlier
         human genes to be isolated and cloned for study" [syn: adenosine deaminase]

ADA
     Automatic Data Acquisitions
     
     

Ada n. A {Pascal}-descended language that was at one time made
   mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon.
   Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is
   precisely what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat;
   designed by committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a
   disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one common description was
   "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers find Ada's exception-handling and
   inter-process communication features particularly hilarious. Ada
   Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron who became the world's first
   programmer while cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his
   mechanical computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly
   blanch at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
   thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good small
   language screaming to get out from inside its vast, elephantine bulk.

Ada
     
         (After Ada Lovelace) A Pascal-descended
        language, designed by Jean Ichbiah's team at CII Honeywell
        in 1979, made mandatory for Department of Defense software
        projects by the Pentagon.  The original language was
        standardised as "Ada 83", the latest is "Ada 95".
     
        Ada is a large, complex, block-structured language aimed
        primarily at embedded applications.  It has facilities for
        real-time response, concurrency, hardware access and
        reliable run-time error handling.  In support of large-scale
        software engineering, it emphasises strong typing, data abstraction and encapsulation.  The type system uses name equivalence and includes both subtypes and derived types.
        Both fixed and floating-point numerical types are supported.
     
        Control flow is fully bracketed: if-then-elsif-end if,
        case-is-when-end case, loop-exit-end loop, goto.  Subprogram
        parameters are in, out, or inout.  Variables imported from
        other packages may be hidden or directly visible.  Operators
        may be overloaded and so may enumeration literals.  There
        are user-defined exceptions and exception handlers.
     
        An Ada program consists of a set of packages encapsulating
        data objects and their related operations.  A package has a
        separately compilable body and interface.  Ada permits
        generic packages and subroutines, possibly parametrised.
     
        Ada support single inheritance, using "tagged types" which
        are types that can be extended via inheritance.
     
        Ada programming places a heavy emphasis on multitasking.
        Tasks are synchronised by the rendezvous, in which a task
        waits for one of its subroutines to be executed by another.
        The conditional entry makes it possible for a task to test
        whether an entry is ready.  The selective wait waits for
        either of two entries or waits for a limited time.
     
        Ada is often criticised, especially for its size and
        complexity, and this is attributed to its having been designed
        by committee.  In fact, both Ada 83 and Ada 95 were designed
        by small design teams to be internally consistent and tightly
        integrated.  By contrast, two possible competitors, Fortran 90 and C++ have both become products designed by large and
        disparate volunteer committees.
     
        See also Ada/Ed, Toy/Ada.
     
        Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/).  Ada FAQs (http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/) (hypertext), text only (ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/FAQ).
     
        (http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/),
        (ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/),
        (ftp://stars.rosslyn.unisys.com/pub/ACE_8.0).
     
        E-mail: .
     
        Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.ada.
     
        An Ada grammar (ftp://primost.cs.wisc.edu/) including a lex
        scanner and yacc parser is available.  E-mail:
        .
     
        Another yacc grammar and parser for Ada by Herman Fischer (ftp://wsmr-simtel20.army.mil/PD2:GRAM2.SRC).
     
        An LR parser and pretty-printer for Ada from NASA is
        available from the Ada Software Repository.
     
        Adamakegen generates makefiles for Ada programs.
     
        ["Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language", ANSI/MIL
        STD 1815A, US DoD (Jan 1983)].  Earlier draft versions
        appeared in July 1980 and July 1982.  ISO 1987.
     
        [Jargon File]
     
        (2000-08-12)
     
     

Ada++
     
         An object-oriented extension to Ada,
        implemented as an Ada preprocessor.  Obsoleted by Ada 95
        which includes object-oriented features.
     
        [Jargon File]
     
        (1995-09-19)
     
     

Ada, KS
  Zip code(s): 67414
Ada, MI
  Zip code(s): 49301
Ada, MN (city, FIPS 172)
  Location: 47.29952 N, 96.51393 W
  Population (1990): 1708 (881 housing units)
  Area: 3.1 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
Ada, OH (village, FIPS 198)
  Location: 40.76884 N, 83.82386 W
  Population (1990): 5413 (1857 housing units)
  Area: 4.0 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
  Zip code(s): 45810
Ada, OK (city, FIPS 200)
  Location: 34.77701 N, 96.66041 W
  Population (1990): 15820 (7602 housing units)
  Area: 33.1 sq km (land), 0.1 sq km (water)
  Zip code(s): 74820

Ada -- U.S. County in Idaho
   Population (2000):    300904
   Housing Units (2000): 118516
   Land area (2000):     1054.990995 sq. miles (2732.414018 sq. km)
   Water area (2000):    5.336939 sq. miles (13.822607 sq. km)
   Total area (2000):    1060.327934 sq. miles (2746.236625 sq. km)
   Located within:       Idaho (ID), FIPS 16
   Location:             43.560300 N, 116.280069 W
   Headwords:
    Ada
    Ada, ID
    Ada County
    Ada County, ID

Ada, OH -- U.S. village in Ohio
   Population (2000):    5582
   Housing Units (2000): 1948
   Land area (2000):     1.871428 sq. miles (4.846975 sq. km)
   Water area (2000):    0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
   Total area (2000):    1.871428 sq. miles (4.846975 sq. km)
   FIPS code:            00198
   Located within:       Ohio (OH), FIPS 39
   Location:             40.768883 N, 83.822298 W
   ZIP Codes (1990):     45810
   Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
   Headwords:
    Ada, OH
    Ada

Ada, OK -- U.S. city in Oklahoma
   Population (2000):    15691
   Housing Units (2000): 7472
   Land area (2000):     15.701331 sq. miles (40.666259 sq. km)
   Water area (2000):    0.071505 sq. miles (0.185198 sq. km)
   Total area (2000):    15.772836 sq. miles (40.851457 sq. km)
   FIPS code:            00200
   Located within:       Oklahoma (OK), FIPS 40
   Location:             34.763661 N, 96.668214 W
   ZIP Codes (1990):     74820
   Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
   Headwords:
    Ada, OK
    Ada

Ada, MN -- U.S. city in Minnesota
   Population (2000):    1657
   Housing Units (2000): 835
   Land area (2000):     1.342312 sq. miles (3.476572 sq. km)
   Water area (2000):    0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
   Total area (2000):    1.342312 sq. miles (3.476572 sq. km)
   FIPS code:            00172
   Located within:       Minnesota (MN), FIPS 27
   Location:             47.298701 N, 96.515796 W
   ZIP Codes (1990):    
   Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
   Headwords:
    Ada, MN
    Ada