The Story of My Life so Far - Part 121 - September 1999: I start working part-time for AdaCore

This is the story of my life so far: 69 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France

The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 120

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When I was working for CR2A in France, I have been involved in the standardization of the second version of the Ada programming language. I participated in several meetings, both in Europe and in the United states. During these meetings, I have met Robert Dewar and Ed Schonberg who were members of the US delegation.

During the standardization process, Robert and Ed, that were both professors at New York University (NYU), were leading a group of engineers from NYU that were creating an open source Ada compiler for the new version of the language. They called it GNAT, which at the time stood for "GNU NYU Ada Translator". This was financed by the US Air Force.

In 1994, Robert and Ed, with another guy from NYU, created a small company, Ada Core Technologies (AdaCore), to continue to develop GNAT and to create a complete software development environment around the Ada language.

During the initial development of GNAT at NYU, I had made some small contributions. After moving to Canada in 1994, I had continued to go to Ada conferences, both in the US and in Europe, so I kept in touch with Robert and Ed.

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In 1999, after Hughes Aircraft of Canada had been bought by Raytheon, I could see that Raytheon was not interested in continuing to develop the technology that made the CAATS Air Traffic System, so I predicted that within 3 to 5 years Raytheon will no longer have any establishment in British Columbia.
So, I decided to no longer be a full time employee of Raytheon.

My first idea was to leave the company and to be hired back as a full time consultant. That would have give me time to find another job. But I was told that this would never happen.

Following the suggestion of Chris Thomson, the company told me that I could work part time for Raytheon and part time for another company.

So, I contacted Robert at AdaCore to see if they would hire me. Many of heir employee were working at home in various part of the USA, so I knew it would not be a problem for them if I worked at home in Canada.

And in September 1994, I started working for 10 hours a week for AdaCore, while still working for 30 hours for Raytheon.

Working part time for AdaCore was a good way to see if it was easy for me to work at home. When you have no fixed work hours and nobody to check when you are effectively working, the temptation may be to get up late and work less than you are supposed to. I quickly realized that it was not my case. I had always be up early in the morning, so it was never a problem for me to work at home.

An this is how I started to work for AdaCore, as a consultant, first part time, then full time starting in September 2001.

Continue to Part 122

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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16
Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24
Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32
Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40
Part 41 - Part 42 - Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48
Part 49 - Part 50 - Part 51 - Part 52 - Part 53 - Part 54 - Part 55 - Part 56
Part 57 - Part 58 - Part 59 - Part 60 - Part 61 - Part 62 - Part 63 - Part 64
Part 65 - Part 66 - Part 67 - Part 68 - Part 69 - Part 70 - Part 71 - Part 72
Part 73 - Part 74 - Part 75 - Part 76 - Part 77 - Part 78 - Part 79 - Part 80
Part 81 - Part 82 - Part 83 - Part 84 - Part 85 - Part 86 - Part 87 - Part 88
Part 89 - Part 90 - Part 91 - Part 92 - Part 93 - Part 94 - Part 95 - Part 96
Part 97 - Part 98 - Part 99 - Part 100 - Part 101 - Part 102 - Part 103
Part 104 - Part 105 - Part 106 - Part 107 - Part 108 - Part 109 - Part 110
Part 111 - Part 112 - Part 113 - Part 114 - Part 115 - Part 116 - Part 117
Part 118 - Part 119 - Part 120