Happy new Year everyone!

I'm proud, if not a bit nervous, to be the one firing the very first post on this brand new blog. Why are we starting a corporate blog at this time? There are many reasons for this. The main one is that there are many things happening at AdaCore and around the GNAT technology and we are seeking better ways to make them widely known while offering interested recipients the possibility to react and interact with us.

This blog is first a replacement for the GEMs program which has run for over 8 years and produced more than 150 entries sharing some of the more interesting and sometimes puzzling technical aspects of the varous versions of Ada and of the GNAT toolset. Contrary to the GEM program, we do not intend to limit this blog to purely technical posts. We also wish to share and discuss on less technical topics such as the advances of software static verification techniques, the business models associated with open source or the economical and human challenges in producing really safe and secure software at reasonnable cost.

Considering this last point, I have been impressed by the invasion of drone-related stories in the newspapers. There is hardly a week that passes without a mention of drones either in some kind of futuristic service announcements or potentially catastrophic usages. From bringing your bottle of milk to your doorstep to controlling the state of gaz pipelines in hostile environments, from unidentified flights over nuclear plants to abducted military drones. Whether we like it or not, drones are in the process of taking a significant place in our lifes and along with them, the software that control their flights and missions. A good question for us, who feel strongly about safety, is: if the drones have been a very nice vector for popularizing some of the aeronautics know-how, will we be able to popularize fast enough the "safe" programming know-how that has allowed aircrafts to claim a first place among safe transportation means?

Would answering "yes" to such a question only be yet-another-soon-to-be-forgotten new Year's resolution?