Reliable Software Technologies – Ada-Europe 2014

The 19th edition of the International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies (Ada-Europe 2014) took place in the fascinating venue of Paris, graciously hosted by the Ecole d’Ing ́enieurs, ECE, on their spectacular campus very close to the Eiffel Tower. With this edition, the conference returned to France for the third time after Toulouse in 2003 and Brest in 2009. Two other countries have hosted the conference three times since its inception: Spain (Santander, 1999, Palma de Mallorca, 2004, and Valencia, 2010), and the UK (London, 1997, York, 2005, and Edinburgh, 2011). Three countries hosted it twice: Switzerland (Montreux, for the inauguration in 1996, and Geneva, 2007), Sweden (Uppsala, 1998, and Stockholm, 2012), and Germany (Potsdam, 2000, and Berlin, 2013). Four countries have their hosting counter still at one: Belgium (Leuven, 2001), Austria (Vienna, 2002), Portugal (Porto, 2006) and Italy (Venice, 2008). The conference series is run and sponsored by Ada-Europe, in collaboration with local organizers, whenever possible (and luckily, often enough) representing the local Ada communities. This was the case this year, with Ada-France leading the organizing team, with precious reinforcement from members of the host institution, ECE. There were two main reasons for the conference to come to Paris. One was to facilitate an encounter between the vast industrial pole based around Paris and the 2012 revision of the Ada language standard, which makes it especially attractive where reliability is a factor. The other was to start the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the first validation of GNAT, which actually happened in 1995, before building a home in Paris after its birth in New York. These celebrations will peak in 2015, in nice sync with the 20th anniversary of the conference series.