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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!june.cs.washington.edu!pattis From: pattis@june.cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) Subject: Re: Free Optimizing Ada Compiler Message-ID: <1991May9.175544.11853@beaver.cs.washington.edu> Sender: news@beaver.cs.washington.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle References: <1991May9.080740.6534@netcom.COM> <9105091625.AA11977@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> Distribution: comp.lang.ada Date: Thu, 9 May 91 17:55:44 GMT List-Id: In article <9105091625.AA11977@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Harry Koehnemann) writes: >It's not just that, it's also resources. It been discussed here to put >Ada as the beginning language, but what are the consequences of doing >so. A university can get a site license for pretty cheap. However, >compile 15 C programs concurrently and then 15 Ada versions for >equivalent programs and you'll see the magnitude of the problem. > >Harry Koehnemann >koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu Actually, in my expericien this is not much of a problem. For a sufficiently fast machine, a large number of beginning students can easily share it, since at any given time most are editing their programs (or typing commands to the debugger, or typing input/reading output, or doing some other non CPU- intensive operation). I teach a beginning programming course in Ada, with about 150 students, concurrently with an intermediate Ada course, with about 70. We share a machine with other classes: it has between 50-250 users logged on at any given time. Throughout the quarter I randomly log on and compile complex Ada program. I find that when I compare the CPU and Wall- clock times, I get between 1/2 to 1/3 of the CPU time for my compilations. I don't have any information comparing Ada vs C based on the total number of compiles it takes to get a program correct. While it is easy to measure the absolute speed of a C and Ada compiler, the more important quantity to measure is how long it takes the student to get a working program (summing all the compile times he/she uses). In fact, I will even go to the extreme here and say that it is often BETTER in beginning classes to not have instantaneous compilation. When compilation is TOO FAST, it can seduce students into repeatedly reusing the compiler in place of actually thinking about what they are doing. I often see reasonably written programs turned into garbage by students incrementally changing them without thinking about what they are doing. I am not saying all beginning students succumb to this temptation, but it is my experience that many do. Rich Pattis -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Richard E. Pattis "Programming languages are like Department of Computer Science pizzas - they come in only "too" and Engineering sizes: too big and too small."