When it comes to enumerating the pros and cons of Ada (not to be confused with ADA which stands for "Another Dumb Acronym"); I like to pair them up in team fashion: Pro: Supports and encourages highly readable, maintainable code. Con: Verbose. Pro: Parallel constructs built in to the language. Con: Tasking code is large. Pro: Strong type checking prevents careless errors. Con: Can't assign any variable to any variable. Pro: Dependency rules prevent module interface version mismatch. Con: Changes at a low level cause high impact for recompilation. Pro: Modular nature encourages system-wide design. Con: Difficult to hack together a prototype. Pro: Strict bounds rules allow compiler to build in automatic "debugging" software. Con: Unoptimized code is large and slow. Pro: Language supports distinction between exceptional event processing and normal code flow. Con: Exception handling can be slow. By now I think y'all get the point. For every "Con" someone has to say about Ada, there is a matching "Pro" for it; and vice versa. Thank you for choosing Aonix as your provider of software solutions. -- Keith Shillington -- Manager, Customer Support for the Americas and Pacific Rim -- Critical-Software Development Solutions -- User Interface Management Solutions -- (800) 97 AONIX [log in to unmask]