Re: Ada text for CS2 course

[eichmann@cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (David Eichmann)]

bonak@herky.cs.uiowa.edu (Esmail Bonakdarian) writes:

>I am looking at a possible replacement for our current Ada text in use 
>for the CS2 class I teach. I currently have been using the 3rd edition 
>of "Programming in Ada"  by Barnes, but now am looking for alternatives.
>One book that I am considering is "An Introduction to Ada" 2nd edition
>by S.J. Young. Anybody use that book as a text?

>Any recommendations?

>Thanks,
>Esmail

Esmail,

   I haven't seen Barnes, but I do have a stack of Ada texts:

J. Skansholm, Ada From the Beginning, Addison-Wesley, 1988.

   This is a basic "Ada as yet-another-programming-language" text.
   Solid, but doesn't properly address algorithms vs. code.

E. Vasilescu, Ada Programming with Applications, Wm. Brown, 1987.

   Same comments as for Skansholm.

D. Volper and M. Katz, Introduction to Programming Using Ada, Prentice Hall,
1990.

   Uses a spiral approach to first work with general conceptual issues
   followed by increasing layers of the language complexity.  Uses a
   robot package ala Karel for most of the initial chapters. (The package
   is available anonymous ftp from the authors, and includes a concurrent
   version with multiple robots controlled by Ada tasks.)

D. Watt, B. Wichmann, and W. Findlay, Ada: Language and Methodology,
Prentice Hall, 1987.

   I just received this, and so haven't looked at it in detail.  At first
   glance it appears to fall somewhere inbetween Skansholm and Volper/Katz.

I've personally used Skansholm and Volper/Katz and much prefer Volper/Katz.
Students with previous programming experience may find the initial
chapters too introductory.  There *is*, I think, sufficient information
to do a second course (other than Intro to alg./prog.) based upon the
programming-in-the-large, generics, and concurrency chapters.

- Dave
---
David Eichmann
Dept. of Statistics and Computer Science
West Virginia University                  Phone: (304) 293-3607
Morgantown, WV  26506                     Email: eichmann@a.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu