Hi all,
here are the minutes of the meeting for today’s reunion!
- @joakim-strandberg presented the Meridian Open Ada compiler. A compiler for DOS which anybody can download freely and give it a test or a full drive! I has a full RTS (actually two!) and you could try it out for this year’s Advent of Code. Additionally, it also comes with its own, full blown IDE :D! Here are the relevant links:
- Wiki: Meridian Open Ada - EDM2
- Download page (requires free login): Download Meridian Ada Z 4.1.4 by Meridian Software Systems, Inc. | VETUSWARE.COM - the biggest free abandonware collection in the universe
- Manual of the compiler: Meridian Ada 4.1 User Guide (DOS version) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
- Validation report of the Green Hills Compiler which has the definition of
bamp(the linker used by the Meridian compiler): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA288573.pdf - And there are still DOS game jams, you could even use this compiler for it! DOSember Game Jam - itch.io
- Nvidia published their certification process for the highest quality software that one can build for the automotive sector NVIDIA publishes SPARK Process to meet ISO-26262 requirements - #3 by kevlar700 But additionally, some people who work on the safety-critical systems of NVIDIA’s chips, gave a presentation in DEF CON 33 (this year) detailing their work on the RISC-V architecture and Ada/SPARK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhWtkZmOPn4 It is heavily implied in their presentation that they have shipped over 1 billion cores running Ada/SPARK!!!
- @abitofhelp dropped a few new and cool libraries and tools, such as Functional Error Handling v1.0.0: Result<T,E>, Option<T>, and Either<L,R>, Try_To_Result Go and check them out!
- AWS is going into maintenance mode and it is projected to be archived in the future: AWS End Of Life If you would like to keep maintaining it, contact @AJ-Ianozi as he is looking into options about it!
- Similar news about PolyORB, it is also getting deprecated in the future: Polyorb End of Life - #7 by dmitry-kazakov
- The VSS library has now been split into two! Read more about it here ANN: VSS has been split into two libraries and main repo is now archived
- Advent of Code (AoC) is coming and this year it is going to be quite a bit shorter! Plans for AOC 2025?
- The last major Ada 2022 feature that was still not implemented in GNAT,
parallel, is starting to see the light of day! [GSoC & Ada] Working on open source Ada projects and getting paid? - #9 by sttaft Read more about it in the link- If you would like to test it out, you can use @Max’s precompiled GNAT binaries: Release GCC with parallel PREVIEW · reznikmm/GNAT-FSF-builds · GitHub
- It would be great for people to use this new feature in the AoC to test it out and find bugs before it is hopefully upstreamed to GCC 16!
- The Alire project now also provides compiled prereleases of GCC 16 in case you would like to start playing around with them! Releases · alire-project/GNAT-FSF-builds · GitHub
- We did not get a devroom accepted for FOSDEM, but we are going to see if we get a stand!
- A reminder that the next Ada-Europe international Conference will be taking place in Sweden, and we hope to have another Ada Developers Workshop! https://www.ada-europe.org/conference2026/
- Wesley and Weston are working hard on the recordings of the of the Paris’ Ada Developers Workshop
! - And we hope to release some more news about the creation of a fund to… well, fund, Ada activities and achievements soon!
Thank you everybody who attended! If you couldn’t, you can find the livestream/recording in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93rgu4t9As
Best regards and see you all soon!
Fer