[The following document was produced by Lt Col William Whitaker, Chairman of the DoD High Order Language Working Group, the project that produced Ada. It was produced as a thought exercise, a view of the future, a set of possible metrics to gauge if the program was making progress. It was an entirely personal and private view, the sort of thing that is best sealed up for a couple of decades and recalled to reveal the fate of youthful dreams. It was done in 1979, well before the advent o f t h e PC, a n d s l i g h t l y updated in 1981 for an Air Force study, no longer available. It represents 15 year old technology. It is offered here for historic interest.] READY? The Air Force has declared that Ada will be the standard language; J73 will be used in t h e i n t e r i m u n t i l A d a is r e a d y . While the question may be moot in this particular case, there is a r e a l philosophical question of when a language is "ready",
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