An overview of DOD-STD-1838A (proposed) the common APSE interface set: revision

A five-year effort under the Ada Joint Program Office has developed a proposed standard for a host system interface as seen by tools running in an Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE). Standardization of this interface as DOD-STD-1838A will have a number of desirable effects for the Department of Defense, including tool portability, tool integration, data transportability, encouragement of a market in portable tools, and better programmer productivity. As the capability of tools to communicate with each other is a central requirement in APSEs, the Common APSE Interface Set (CAIS) has paid particular attention to facilitate such communication in a host-independent fashion. CAIS incorporates a well-integrated set of concepts tuned to the needs of writers and users of integrated tool sets. This paper covers several of these concepts:• the entity management system used in place of a traditional filing system, • object typing with inheritance, • process control including atomic transactions, • access control and security, • input/output methods, • support for distributed resource control, and • facilities for inter-system data transport.