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Subject:
From:
Currie Colket <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Currie Colket <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:22:49 -0400
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Dear David and Team Ada:

This thread discussing SIGAda has been interesting and thought
provoking.

As Mike Feldman indicated, much of the information you seek is already
on the SIGAda Home Page at:

        http://www.acm.org/sigada/

Some of your questions addressed who the officers were, how they were
selected, and how does one contribute.

SIGAda is a special interest group under the Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM). Consequently it conforms to all the rules established
by ACM as a society for software professionals. SIGAda has 7 elected
officers:

        Chair
        Vice Chair for Meetings and Conferences
        Vice Chair for Liaison
        Secretary
        Treasurer
        International Representative
        Past Chair

The current officers are:

        Chair: Ben Brosgol
        Vice Chair for Meetings and Conferences: Currie Colket
        Vice Chair for Liaison: Ron Oliver
        Secretary: John McCormick
        Treasurer: Bard Crawford
        International Representative: Karlotto Mangold
        Past Chair: Hal Hart

ACM conducts the elections. Only ACM Professional Members have the right
to vote (i.e., Associate members who join at a reduced fee, do not have
this right). All officers serve as volunteers and try to keep up with
their regular job:-) Elections for SIGAda officers are scheduled for
this spring, with the new slate of officers taking the helm on 1 July
2001. You should be getting a ballot sometime this winter/early spring.
Hal Hart, as Past Chair, is responsible for soliciting candidates to
run. If you are interested in running for a SIGAda office, please send
him email at <[log in to unmask]>. Only Ben Brosgol qualifies for the
position of Past Chair, so please don't apply for this position:-) This
is a good time to get involved in the election process. You must be both
an ACM Professional Member and a SIGAda Member to run for an elected
position. Membership can be obtained on-line through the ACM Home Page.
(http://www.acm.org)

SIGAda does have the support of a paid ACM staffer, Ms. Ginger Ignatoff,
the SIGAda Program Director at <[log in to unmask]>. She supports a number
of other SIGs as well. She would be a good person to contact should you
have any membership problems (not handled by the volunteers).

David's email challenged me to search the ACM and SIGAda Home Page,
where I expected to find a description of the election process and the
governing by-laws for both ACM and SIGAda. Unfortunately, nothing was
easily found. This information is a good candidate for the SIGAda Home
Page. I have asked John McCormick to add some information there (the
SIGAda Secretary is also the SIGAda Webmaster). Speaking of the SIGAda
Home Page, if there is anything else you would like to see there, please
contact John at <[log in to unmask]>. He would be happy to add
most things requested. We have a lot of freedom to put things onto our
Home Page. John has done an excellent job in posting things of interest
to the Ada community. If you have additional things you would like to
see, please let John know.

David, as far as your question as to how one contributes, there are many
opportunities. You are already involved in the SIGAda 2000 Conference,
both as an Invited Speaker and as a Tutorial Presenter. I thank you for
this. The SIGAda Conferences are one of our most important activities
and our most visible in supporting the needs of the Ada community. (The
Advanced Program is in the process of being printed as I write and will
be mailed out shortly). For those who can not wait, please visit the
SIGAda 2000 Conference Home Page at:

        http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigada/conf/sigada2000/

An electronic tickler for the conference will be sent out shortly.

Another excellent place to contribute is with the Working Groups. ALIWG,
NUMWG, ARTEWG, and PIWG all were important forces is shaping the Ada 95
ISO standard. ASISWG has developed an effective interface for extracting
syntactic and semantic information about a program to support static
code analysis. EDUWG has served as a prime resource to support the
Educational Community. The ABWG has served as a forum to develop and
disseminate information on Ada bindings. Other working groups have
conducted workshops to address concerns for the Ada community. Some
working groups have ambitious missions that need volunteers to achieve
success. These are all excellent places to contribute. We have 3
workshops planned for SIGAda 2000:

        1.  Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS) Workshop
        2.  Cost Effective Approaches to Satisfy Safety-Critical
            Regulatory Requirements
        3.  Should Software Engineers by Licensed Engineers?

Other workshops are welcome and encouraged. Please contact Alok
Srivastava at <[log in to unmask]> if you would like to propose
a workshop (or a BOF). We do have space for several more.

SIGAda publishes Ada Letters. This is an excellent place to contribute
your ideas which will benefit the entire Ada community. It was noted
recently that deadlines for Ada Letters should be posted on Team Ada.
This is an excellent idea.

There are many other ways to contribute, but I will mention only one
more, that of the Ada Booth. SIGAda and the ARA send forth a booth to
about 5-8 conferences each year. SIGAda provides volunteers while the
ARA support many of the fiscal arrangements for booth shipping, etc.
This is another good venue to volunteer. If there is a conference you
think we should take the booth to, please contact Hal Hart at:
<[log in to unmask]>.

One of the comments in this thread addressed if the officers subscribe
to Team-Ada. Most of the SIGAda officers subscribe to Team-Ada and we
hear the excellent ideas raised here. Some of us have even commented on
the ideas. Ideas that you feel strongly about should be sent explicitly
to the SIGAda Executive Council at <[log in to unmask]>, requesting
action by the SIGAda Officers.

If you have any specific questions on SIGAda, please contact me at
<[log in to unmask]> or at +1 (703) 883-7381 and I will try to answer.

v/r
Currie Colket
SIGAda Vice Chair for Meetings and Conferences

David Botton wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Feldman" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > But it's
> > just unrealistic to expect everyone to know about everything,
>
> True, but not unrealistic to expect that SigAda takes an active leadership
> role in publicising the available resource that do exist.
>
> I'd be happy to contribute regular information on what is going on in the
> Ada "Net" world to AdaLetters and as I said in the original e-mail if some
> dead line notices would be placed on Team-Ada, other articles.
>
> > and not too quick to complain about "balkanization". We cannot
> > have it both ways: if we are going to be decentralized,
>
> Just the opposite, we should be centralizing and SigAda should be the focus
> of it.
>
> > I don't believe anyone is trying to freeze out AdaPower
>
> I don't believe there is or has been a "freeze out", just as you said, a
> lack of "focus" on the big picture.
>
> > there are people in SIGAda who might not hang out
> > on the net and do not know about you.
>
> That is exactly the point, SigAda is for many the only source of news and
> information and they are missing out! If a list is published in Ada Letters
> of "reuse sources" and it misses almost all of the active Ada projects (not
> just my own) then Ada Letters is hurting instead of helping since the list
> makes things seem a little pathetic.
>
> > would help if you tried to suggest a mechanism for this to happen.
> > SIGAda is not a "thing", it's just a bunch of people.
>
> Not only do I not see it as a thing, I see my self as part of it! The
> mechanism I suggested is to both make clear avenues for participation open,
> do a little recruiting, and making the new feel welcome by the old.
>
> > Much of the discussion you desire goes on at the annual conference.
>
> Was there.
>
> > BTW - SIGAda has four sources of income:
>
> Money is not the problem, solution, or the issue.
>
> > Well, the organization (officers, WGs) is laid out on the
> > SIGAda website,
>
> Just names of people no information on the how's.
>
> > I think it would be a good idea to post the SIG by-laws on the
> > web. I'll pass this idea on, or you can do it.
>
> First I need to know how to pass it on :-) Get the point.
>
> I am more in the dark now, I would have thought Team-Ada as the place to
> make such suggestions (and in fact the reason I raised the issues here), but
> your many comments and this suggestion seem to indicate that it is not read
> by the decission makers of SigAda ( so what list is? )
>
> > None of this is up on the SigAda web site.
> >
> > Are you sure? I just checked the site and found quite a lot of
> > info. Obviously there is never enough info, and there are always
> > good ideas for more, but what's there is a pretty good start
> > and saying "none" is going too far.
>
> No, none is accurate. The question was on the function (the How's) of SigAda
> and there is no answers to the How's, like how to contribute, how to vote,
> how to find out what is going one, etc.
>
> For example, In my interest to get more involved in SigAda I sat in on every
> meeting I heard of for SigAda. There were many issues that were left open
> that were later closed. Where, when, how? I see the results, but not the
> process.
>
> There is no clear picture of how to get involved. Think about this, If I
> don't know the answer, one who cares, contributes, and has asked these
> questions many times before, what about all the others that didn't care to
> ask?
>
> >  They're friendly people,
> > though, and their e-mail addresses are given on the website.
>
> I have only found them to be so and hope that they see clearly my goal is
> not finger pointing and complaining, but active discussion to fix things,
> get involved, and contribute.
>
> David Botton

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