Book excerpt: This Ada 95 Reference Manual is essentially identical to the new International Standard ISO/IEC 8652:1995(E) for the Ada programming language. The thorough technical revisions and extensions documented in this manual are built on broad participation from the international Ada community and generous support by leading institutions. Over 750 submitted revision requests were evaluated, and the resulting enhancements make Ada 95 an outstanding language. The flexibility of languages such as C++, modern features such as object orientation, and improved interfacing capabilities have been added to the reliable software engineering capabilities provided and proven for over a decade by the predecessor version Ada 83; furthermore, upward compatibility from Ada 83 to Ada 95 has been achieved.