Re: How difficult is ada to learn?

["Gene" <eugene.ressler@frontiernet.net>]

Thanks!  You're absolutely right that sets are less of an issue than
strings.  I overstated by saying "most people."  My reference point is
undergrads in CS1, where small things can make a difference.

You perfectly illustrated what I meant.  The overloaded plus
constructor is quite idiomatic.  In Pascal, set construction just
happens. So students who know sets as an early exercise in Pascal do a
doubletake when they try the same in Ada.  This mysterious-looking plus
pops up, and they must dig in to figure out operator overloading and
parameterized types in order to do what used to be self-evident.  This
isn't a bad thing, but it does cause them to "miss" Pascal sets.

Best regards,
Gene