[ecoop-info] Press Release - Ada-Europe launches Programming Contest

[Dirk Craeynest]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ada-Europe Launches
Annual Student Programming Contest "The Ada Way"

VALENCIA, Spain (June 16, 2010)  On the occasion of Ada-Europe 2010,
the 15th annual Conference on Reliable Software Technologies,
Ada-Europe, the international organization that promotes the knowledge
and use of Ada in European academia, research and industry, launched an
annual Student Programming Contest under the provisional title of "The
Ada Way".

The contest will be a yearly competition among student teams, whereby
each team must have a codename and a logo, a university affiliation,
and the endorsement by an educator. The theme of this year's contest
will be announced by September 1, and submissions will be accepted
until April 30 of the following year. A Steering Committee composed of
representatives of promoting institutions will oversee the organization
of this contest.

Submissions will be marked by an Evaluation Committee composed of
leading Ada experts, such as John Barnes (author of the famous
Programming in Ada books), S. Tucker Taft (leader of the Ada 95
language revision), Ed Schonberg (co-author of the open-source GNAT
Ada compiler and toolset), Joyce Tokar (convenor of the ISO working
group on the Ada language standards), etc.

The winning team will be notified by May 31. The Steering Committee
will offer the winners one free registration, accommodation, and
airfare to the Ada-Europe conference, a slot in the conference program,
publication space in the Ada User Journal, and visibility in other
media. Additional prizes might be offered.

Ada-Europe wants the competition to be fun and educational. The theme
of the contest will be determined by the Steering Committee, and shall
be intellectually challenging and elating. Evaluation criteria shall
include correctness, clarity and readability of the code, ingenuity,
cuteness, and time and space efficiency.

Submissions shall include the source code and the User Manual. The code
must run out-of-the-box when following the User Manual's instructions.
The implementation does not need to be 100% Ada, but of course the
essence must be in Ada, and only the Ada code will be part of the
evaluation. Tullio Vardanega, president of Ada-Europe, stated: "The
winning submission must be a reference for good Ada programming,
software design, and innovation."

About Ada-Europe
Ada-Europe is the international non-profit organization that promotes
the knowledge and use of Ada into academia, research and industry in
Europe. Current member organizations of Ada-Europe are: Ada-Belgium,
Ada in Denmark, Ada-Deutschland, Ada-France, Ada-Spain, Ada in Sweden
and Ada-Switzerland. Ada-Europe also includes and welcomes individual
members from other European countries with no national organization,
and has a total membership in the region of 300.

A PDF version of this press release is available at www.ada-europe.org.

Press contact
Dirk Craeynest, Ada-Europe Vice-President, Dirk.Craeynest at cs.kuleuven.be

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