From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c58a5b8372dc24a0 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!x12g2000yqx.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Alex Mentis Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: confusion with string initialization Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 06:36:38 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <03a8f937-4754-47f3-8cf7-9411139eec53@x12g2000yqx.googlegroups.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.15.10.164 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1271597798 16120 127.0.0.1 (18 Apr 2010 13:36:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:36:38 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: x12g2000yqx.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.15.10.164; posting-account=CedHywoAAAAcVQwJt5x8TeyAwJA5ElaR User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:11023 Date: 2010-04-18T06:36:38-07:00 List-Id: > BTW: John Barnes Ada 2005 Book is truly excellent, however I think I also need a more > "Practical Ada 2005 Programming" book as well. The titles I see on Internet book sellers > are mainly Ada95 and I'm unsure if they have any relevance to learning Ada 2005. Any > Suggestions ?? The Barnes book is one-stop shopping for a comprehensive text that is a half-step easier to read than the ARM. It's an Ada "bible" that every serious Ada programmer should have on their shelf, but I would never give it to a novice programmer to learn from. It doesn't appear to be intended for that. I often lament the availability of good beginner books that cover the new features in Ada 2005. If you just want to learn the essential basics of procedural programming in Ada, then the Ada 95 text offerings out there are (mostly) equally applicable to Ada 2005. Two good introductory books are _Ada 95: Problem Solving and Program Design_, 3rd ed. by Feldman and Koffman and _Programming and Problem Solving with Ada 95_, 2nd ed. by Dale, Weems, and McCormick. I personally like the sequential progression and explanation style in Dale better, but the Feldman text is a bit more comprehensive, getting into more advanced topics like variant records, generics (templates), access types (pointers) and tasks. A good (and free) book you can find online is _Ada 95: The Craft of Object-Oriented Programming_ by John English. I'd put it between Dale and Feldman - English covers more advanced topics than Dale, but it's laid out a bit more clearly than Feldman. Plus, it's free, so you should definitely at least get that. At an intermediate level, or as a supplemental text to those above, one of my personal frequently-used books is _Rendezvous With Ada 95_, 2nd ed. by Naiditch. This book goes into much further detail than the ones above on generics, exceptions, access types, input/output, and tasks. It also adds a section on low-level programming and representation clauses. The English, Naiditch, and Feldman texts all cover object-oriented programming for Ada 95, but if you want to learn OO in Ada 2005, skip these sections and buy _Ada Plus Data Structures: An Object Oriented Approach_, 2nd ed by Dale and McCormick. This text covers the updated object oriented features of Ada 2005 and picks up where _Programming and Problem Solving_ leaves off by covering generics and access types. I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I seem to remember there also is an example that uses fixed and unbounded string manipulation extensively. Finally, practice using the Ada Reference Manual. It's really hard to start your learning with it, but being able to use it is an essential skill for Ada programmers. HTH Alex