Terms and Conditions:

Ken O. Burtch wrote:Copyright © 1999-2006, Ken O. Burtch. All Rights Reserved. Permission given to copy (including printing and photocopying) this document for education purposes provided this notice is kept intact.

Book Excerpts:

This document covers basic software development on Linux, a review of the core Ada 95 language, and an introduction to designing programs that work with the Linux kernel and standard C libraries. It also covers some of the Ada bindings that exist for packages like Motif, TCL and GTK+.

This book tries to describe Linux specifics whenever possible. This is not another UNIX book recycled with the word "Linux" substituted in. Although many Ada basics are covered, this document assumes the reader is familiar with a high-level programming language such as BASIC, C, C++ and Java. Borland Delphi programmers will notice similarities between Delphi and Ada. Because C is the dominant language in the Linux world, the differences between C and Ada are hilighed throughout the text.

The document is designed to be used as a reference after it's been read, with many tables and examples covering common Linux programming problems.

Although this book covers a lot of material, it is not intended as an exhaustive survey of Linux Ada programming. Linux is in a constant state of development. Refer to the Linux documentation for the latest information and newest features. Also, Ada 95 has several application specific and portability features which are not covered since they are not related to general Linux Ada programming.

Because of the fast pace of Linux development, information in this document may be obsolete, or (to paraphrase Douglas Adams) apocryphal or wildly inaccurate. However, most of the facts have been verified against Gnat 3.11 (or a later version), and most of the examples in this document have been compiled under Gnat.