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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,3d76796391769899 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: zeta_no Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:26:59 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <096e5f19-ed4d-4c02-b889-88856ac0d5c7@5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com> References: <41d3829e-286d-4894-9140-31343bfa75ac@o12g2000vba.googlegroups.com> <82y6fgxncs.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <82aarux3g3.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <2da7ba0b-0c45-4c7b-a523-b3438e43212a@j27g2000vbp.googlegroups.com> <87k4qsapgr.fsf_-_@ludovic-brenta.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.246.239.172 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1276450019 11962 127.0.0.1 (13 Jun 2010 17:26:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:26:59 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com; posting-host=216.246.239.172; posting-account=_PzQ6woAAACMmOTJ1acimpQRdkpIwcWU User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.70 Safari/533.4,gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11680 Date: 2010-06-13T10:26:59-07:00 List-Id: On May 24, 6:45=A0pm, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > Which tutorials specifically did you use and which ones were bad? =A0How > would you suggest improving them? > > Also, do you actually _learn_ anything in tutorials? =A0I mean, do you > learn the underlying concepts, the basic knowledge that empowers you, or > do you only skim the surface of things and remain dependent on "experts" > to guide you? I should not point anyone by referring directly to their tutorials, but let say a came across a least 3 tutorials about concurrency programming with Ada that falls short of providing meaningful insight on the true capabilities of Ada in this field. They present task, delays, guard etc but don't put all these concepts in 'imaging' situations, which resumes the power of the tasking model. Those did not referred to typical uses of Ada, real problem solving that would enlighten its non naive usage. The offer for tutorials that presents a classical introduction to Ada as being a general programming language, with enhanced capabilities (tasking model, real-time annex etc), is too important. Many like me would benefit from more specialized tutorials, like let say a middle size embedded project, covering simply, many or all the main concepts provided by Ada and their sound usage. To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding (compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit austere books to sink in. > It would be constructive if you could be more specific. =A0In particular = I > would be very interested in ideas on how to improve the first contact a > newbie can have with Ada. Oh yes, I have ideas! 1. From my searches, it seems most people active with Ada are registered and composed article on Ada Programming (Wikibooks). Tell me if I am wrong? 2. A stable Ada home should be enforced (it confuses the newbs not to know where this month, this year you guys are). Involved people will change. Their effort are precious and you don't want 'tribal' data. Wikibooks being an independent Wikimedia Foundation project has low risk of vanishing in foreseeable future and anyone can add centralized efforts. 3. Gather all interesting internet links on 'tribal' Ada material to this page. Next post by newbs asking for Ada resources, be coherent and send it to a single HOME. 4. Face lift, in the form of reorganization not visual style, to Ada Programming (Wikibooks)! i. The intro is not good as it should be. It should be more sexy! ii. In my humble opinion, the Ada Lovelace painting should be changed by the more impressive logo 'in strong typing we trust' or a NASA project's photograph. I am not from the USA, and still I find this logo incredibly brilliant. From a fine arts point of view, this is truly post-modern (being a logo first, the wordplay, the reference to a military badge and finally a classical portrait of a women(later by reference again, you learn she was the first programmer of all time). Wow!) iii. The intro should impress(not too much) and excite the visitor. Concise. - Standard of software engineering. (a reference on that) - General purpose, object-oriented, safety critical etc... (soft on that, should impress but not overwhelm) - NASA, Boeing etc. (soft on that, should impress but not overwhelm) - Emphasis on 'sexy' project that uses Ada, Globe3D, GTKAda, MarteOS, etc. (with links and maybe small thumbnails, colorful. This can't overwhelm because it is on your reach right now compared to the NASA projects. It can only excite) - Links for resources. Split in two branches. One for beginner, one for regular. iv. In the beginner section, a first tutorial for setting up Ada. One windows, one Linux. (if on Linux GPS is crap, hide it, tutorial should be made to use emacs with Ada) > > -- > Ludovic Brenta.