Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[Richard Pattis]

Is there anyone out there that works for SUN and is interested in Ada for
educational use?  I could use some help.

I was contacted by an instructor at a small school who doesn't have great net
access, and wants to teach Ada in CS1/CS2 using Sparcs. According to him, SUN
will sell him the Ada compilers for about $1K per machine (he has 6-12) but
that Ada is not considered an "Educational Product" so support costs an
additional $1.6K per machine, which prices it out of his range.

As co-chair of the SIGAda Education Committee, I promised him I'd look into it,
but don't know where to start in the SUN hierarchy. I cannot even vouch for the
veracity of his information, so I'll post any correction here.

I already told him that Alsys sells SUN-4 compilers for $500 total, and put him
in touch with the NYU AdaEd people about their free Unix interpreter. But for a
variety of reasons, he is interested in dealing with SUN, if possible. I know
Ada is considered an Educational Product at DEC and IBM.

I'd appreciate help in tracking down the truth, and lobbying SUN if the truth
is what I've been told.


Rich Pattis

FYI: The primary growth language in CS 1/CS 2 are Ada and Scheme. C/C++ looks
to have a bright future (all the publishers are lining up books) but it is
still unproven in these courses compared to Ada and Scheme (about 50 schools
seem to use Ada/Scheme). Pascal is still dominant, but not growing.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  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."

Re: Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[Michael Feldman]

In article <1992Oct28.001306.21569@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pattis@cs.washingt
on.edu (Richard Pattis) writes:
>
[good stuff deleted]

>FYI: The primary growth language in CS 1/CS 2 are Ada and Scheme. C/C++ looks
>to have a bright future (all the publishers are lining up books) but it is
>still unproven in these courses compared to Ada and Scheme (about 50 schools
>seem to use Ada/Scheme). Pascal is still dominant, but not growing.

You probably meant to say that about 50 schools use Ada in CS1 and about 50
schools use Scheme. This is the case, according to the latest Reid Report.
Actually, the Ada number is closer to 60, including the military academies
of Australia and Belgium. I guess those foreigners must be far more
primitive than us Americans - our military academies must be much too
advanced to use Ada in CS1 :-)

Adding another 40 or so schools that don't use Ada in CS1 but introduce it
in CS2 (including the Air Force Academy but not the others), we actually
get about 100 colleges and universities doing first-year Ada.

The Reid Report shows 22 C schools and 6 C++ schools, so
currently, about twice as many schools use Ada in CS1 as use C and C++
combined. The current Reid Report summarizes data submitted voluntarily
over the net by 331 schools. I don't know whether the data is 
representative of the other languages. The Ada information is
authoritative. Reid and I shared our data; my data came from CREASE, 
Reid, my own gleanings, publishers, etc. I don't think we are missing
a lot of Ada schools.

The Reid Report covers _only_ CS1, by the way. Copies on request.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"Americans wants the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[Richard Pattis]

  Yes, I meant that about 50 schools use Ada in CS 1 and 50 use Scheme. I know
that these lists are up to date, because people advocating use of these
languages are keeping good records. I imagine there are more schools using
C and C++ (maybe many more) but Reid hasn't tapped into bean counters for
those languages yet.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  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."

Re: Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[netnews.upenn.edu!uofs!guinness.cs.uofs.edu!beidler]

In article <1992Oct28.001306.21569@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, pattis@cs.washing
ton.edu (Richard Pattis) writes:
|> Is there anyone out there that works for SUN and is interested in Ada for
|> educational use?  I could use some help.
|> 
|> I was contacted by an instructor at a small school who doesn't have great ne
t
|> access, and wants to teach Ada in CS1/CS2 using Sparcs. According to him, SU
N
|> will sell him the Ada compilers for about $1K per machine (he has 6-12) but
|> that Ada is not considered an "Educational Product" so support costs an
|> additional $1.6K per machine, which prices it out of his range.
|> 

Tell him/her to contact Verdix and/or Meridian.  It has been our experience
that they are willing to talk about site licensing for a lot less than
$1K per machine per year.

-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  John (Jack) Beidler				                   |
|  Prof. of Computer Science Internet: BEIDLER@JAGUAR.UOFS.ED      |
|  University of Scranton              beidler@guinness.cs.uofs.edu|
|  Scranton, PA 18510	      Bitnet : BEIDLER@SCRANTON            |
|                                                                  |
|          Phone: (717) 941-7446	 FAX:   (717) 941-4250     |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+

Re: Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[Thomas N Erickson]

Alsys is also willing to provide extremely favorable conditions for
educational use of Ada, including SPARCstations.

Contact Kathy Ruggiero at (617)270-0030.


Tom Erickson
Alsys



-- 
Tom Erickson
Alsys
tne@world.std.com

Re: Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[Philippe Collard @pulsar]

	TeleSoft offers all its Ada products at a significant
	discount to academic institutions. Please call Serena Vackert
	at (619) 457-2700 (x341) for information on RISCAda, our
	OSF/Motif based development environment for SPARC machines.

	Philippe Collard
	Sr. Marketing Manager, Unix Products
	TeleSoft
	5959 Cornerstone Court
	San Diego, CA 92111
	Tel: (619) 457-2700 (x310)
	email: philippe@telesoft.com