Help me with Educational Use for Ada on Sparcs

[pattis@beaver.cs.washington.edu (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."