Verdix Corporation was an American software company active in the 1980s and 1990s and based in

Fairfax County, Virginia Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. With a population of 1,150,309 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most p ...

, that specialized in language compilers for the

Ada programming language Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level programming language, inspired by Pascal and other languages. It has built-in language support for '' design by contract'' (DbC), extremely strong typing, expli ...

. Verdix was founded in 1982 by George Cowan and Donn Milton. It became a public company in 1983. Cohen served as its CEO and chair while Milton managed the company's Ada Products Division. Its initial offices were in

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is ...

but it subsequently moved to Chantilly and then Herndon, all within Fairfax County in northern Virginia. The Verdix Ada Development System (VADS) provided a set of tools for software developers who create complex systems. It included an Ada compiler, a visual debugger, a library management system, and an efficient

runtime system In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile time ...

. VADS was sold in several configurations: * VADS self: For self-hosted systems running on workstations * VADScross: For applications embedded in microprocessors * VADSworks: For networked

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

applications providing critical communications and efficiency * VADSpro: A complete

configuration management Configuration management (CM) is a management process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life. ...

system integrated with IDE OODSA/Ada, SART (

automated reasoning In computer science, in particular in knowledge representation and reasoning and metalogic, the area of automated reasoning is dedicated to understanding different aspects of reasoning. The study of automated reasoning helps produce computer progr ...

tools), and

Interleaf Interleaf, Inc. was a company that created computer software products for the technical publishing creation and distribution process. Founded in 1981, its initial product was the first commercial document processor that integrated text and graphi ...

* VADS APSE: VADSpro plus tools for developing

CASE Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

applications * VSLAN (Verdix Secure

Local Area Network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

): For developers working in highly secure environments The company achieved its first official validated Ada compiler in January 1985. Verdix became known for the large number of Ada compilers it offered on many different systems, selling both native compilers and cross-compilers for embedded systems architectures. By 1992 Verdix had 105 different Ada compilers on the Ada Joint Program Office validated compilers list, easily the most of any Ada vendor (next highest was Alsys with 60). Its revenues were around $13 million. The Ada software environment was originally thought to be a promising market, with a number of small, new companies including Verdix seeking to gain a foothold in it. But the Ada compiler business proved to be a difficult one to be in; many of the advantages of the language for general-purpose programming were not seen as such by the general

software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

community or by educators. Consolidations happened within the Ada software tools industry. In 1991 Verix bought Meridian Software Systems, another Ada compiler company. In 1994, Verdix itself was acquired by

Rational Software Rational Machines is an enterprise founded by Paul Levy and Mike Devlin in 1981 to provide tools to expand the use of modern software engineering practices, particularly explicit modular architecture and iterative development. It changed its n ...

References

{{reflist, 2 Software companies established in 1982 Software companies disestablished in 1994 Software companies based in Virginia Defunct software companies of the United States Companies based in Fairfax County, Virginia Ada (programming language) 1982 establishments in Virginia 1994 disestablishments in Virginia