Ithaca, NY — GrammaTech, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a $70,000 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Under terms of the agreement, GrammaTech will develop a prototype toolset to help with maintaining and modifying legacy code written in Ada.
The missile defense community currently has millions of lines of Ada code in systems that are still undergoing development, or that must be maintained for decades to come. Of these systems, THAAD is among the most highly visible. Unfortunately, the use of Ada is in decline. Fewer programmers are being trained in Ada, and many vendors have cut back on their tool support. However, in few cases does it make both economic and technical sense to migrate to a new language. More often, code written in Ada must continue to be developed and maintained.
Engineers working with Ada should have the best tools available for working with legacy code. Such tools should help with program understanding, software assurance, and the disciplined modification of programs to adapt to evolving needs.
About GrammaTech:
GrammaTech’s static-analysis tools are used worldwide by startups, Fortune 500 companies, educational institutions, and government agencies. The staff includes fourteen researchers with PhDs in programming languages and program analysis.
