Ada 80

Ada 80 was developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by a team led by Jean Ichbiah at CII Honeywell Bull, under contract to the United States Department of Defense. It was created to address the need for a standardized, high-level programming language that could be used across various defense systems, aiming to improve software reliability and maintainability. The language was named after Ada Lovelace, an early pioneer in computing.

Strengths of Ada 80 included strong typing, modularity, concurrency support, and reliability, making it ideal for mission-critical and real-time systems. Weaknesses involved its complexity and steep learning curve, which could deter adoption. Competitors at the time included C, which offered better performance and simplicity, and Pascal, which was easier to learn and use for educational purposes.

An Ada 80 expert must have proficiency in strong typing and modular programming, experience with concurrency and tasking mechanisms, and knowledge of real-time system requirements. They should be adept at debugging and optimizing Ada code, understanding its syntax and semantics deeply. Familiarity with the development tools and environments specific to Ada is also essential.