Re: Ada as the language of first exposure

Re: Ada as the language of first exposure

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!yal]

In <1992Oct23.202426.26645@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman
) writes:

>In article <1992Oct21.152152.17129@fcom.cc.utah.edu> val@news.ccutah.edu (Val 
Kartchner) writes:
>>
>>Actually Pascal is used in more high schools as a teaching language than C.
>>My high school currently teaches Pascal (though they used to teach BASIC,
>>FORTRAN, and COBOL), and (to my knowlege) has never taught C (I have visited
>>a few times since graduating).  "The Law of First Exposure" would then
>>dictate that students would migrate to Pascal or a Pascal-like language.
>>
>The Advanced Placement Exam requires knowledge of Pascal syntax and
>semantics. It is strictly a programming exam, with little if any "design"
>or software engineering content. This is one good reason why high
>schools stick with Pascal. Another _might_ be that many teachers
>(including those of us teaching Ada as a first language) advocate
>that C should be everyone's second language and nobody's first one.

I agree with the comments about C (I oppose teaching it as a first
language -- that would be rather like trying to teach someone to drive
and sticking them in an Indy car right off).  I disagree, however,
with the idea that Ada should be a first langauge, as well.  Ada is
quite large (the size comes with the capability), and one thing that
stems from that is that it can take quite a long time to learn to use
the language well.  I favour sticking with Pascal, which is capable
enough for school programs and protected enough for learning.  There
should, of course, be explanations offered of just why Pascal is the
way it is.

Then, after that first semester, branch out to other languages,
HONESTLY explaining the strong and weak points of each (no language
bigots need apply -- and don't ask me how you would go about trying to
police THAT).  

>Something like 60% of college-level CS programs still use Pascal. They
>are getting fed up with Pascal's terrible portability (ever try Pascal
>on Unix?) and are primed for a change to _something_ else. If any of
>you out there have any influence at your local college, or with your local
>Ada vendor, NOW is the time to make marriages between them, because
>many schools are up to their ears in debate over what replaces Pascal.
>These departments are targets of opprtunity for Ada, but we are going
>to have to move fast. 

The problem with using Ada for a first language in an academic
situation is that the compilers are typically so expensive.  Which
brings us back to one of those original problems.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

Re: Ada as the language of first exposure

[Richard Pattis]

Just two comments:

1) We've been teaching Ada to our 1st year students hear aw UW for 4 years; we
now teach 1,200/year. We teach Ada to these students as an improved,
standardized Pascal. Sure we don't teach some things (tasking is the most
obvious). But we do teach exceptions (they are in Pascal, just not
controllable), operator overloading (with complex numbers),  packages,
generics (sorting and queues are the most obvious examples), and the
protection afforded by private types.

Ada contains many simple features that improve on Pascal: no begin-end blocks
in control structures, short-circuit logical operators, better parameter modes,
unconstrained arrays, structured return types, etc. We have found it no
harder to teach than Pascal. Student programs are smaller and more general
because they use Ada.

2) The price problem is still there, but much reduced. With NYU's free AdaEd,
Alsys lowering prices to $500 for a bunch of machines, Meridian's sub $100
compiler for PCs, DEC's inclusion of Ada in their Academic Software Package,
the upcoming GNU Ada (GNAT) this complaint is not a show stopper.

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."

Re: Ada as the language of first exposure

[Michael Feldman]

In article <1992Oct29.170458.20542@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com 
(fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

[lots of good stuff deleted]
>
>Then, after that first semester, branch out to other languages,
>HONESTLY explaining the strong and weak points of each (no language
>bigots need apply -- and don't ask me how you would go about trying to
>police THAT).  

Well, we just decided at GW that the change from Pascal to Ada after
the first semester was giving the students far more hassle than just
starting with Ada. That was our main argument for the switch to Ada.
And many other schools have drawn the same conclusion. Pascal syntax
and Ada syntax are alike enough but different enough to cause unneeded   
problems to beginners.
>
>The problem with using Ada for a first language in an academic
>situation is that the compilers are typically so expensive.  Which
>brings us back to one of those original problems.

The price of compilers used to be my biggest beef. But those prices have
come down while everything else has gone up. A Meridian or Alsys Unix
server license is <$2000., which for a class of, say, 50 is an
acceptable price per student. And, of course, the compiler is good for
more than one term.

My beef now is that too many schools do not KNOW that the prices have
come down, nor that an Ada compiler, running zillions of small compilations,
will no longer eat your server alive. I keep running into teachers who
have no idea where to start looking for a compiler. I assert that the
compiler companies should be out looking for THEM.

And there's always Ada/Ed, which we used at the University of Washington
last year on a DECStation, with a class of 350 (!) freshmen. Ada/Ed has
some bugs here and there, but in general it's a good entry level system.
Its validation is a few years old, but hey, it'll compile student
programs, and it's free. Also quite fast, by the way, for small programs.

BTW - I'm teaching a 50-student CS1 at GW this year, and a 25-student
CS2. I've given out at least 25 copies of Ada/Ed for DOS. A LOT of
students are getting their own computers. At the current price of
DOS boxes, a computer costs about the same as ONE course at private
college tuition rates.

A number of students have become enamored enough of Ada to want to go beyond
Ada/Ed, so they've purchased the Meridian compiler for $99. I think
more will follow; at least 100 did so last year in Seattle.

The pieces are falling into place to create a snowball effect, but the
vendors are going to have to cooperate, or the bandwagon will screech
to a stop.

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: Ada as the language of first exposure

[Michael Feldman]

In article <2759.2aef7a60@vger.nsu.edu> g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harr
ison, Norfolk State University) writes:
>[text deleted]
>
>I agree with the last statement (re C as a second langauge), and I'm not sure
>about high schools picking up Ada.  It would be difficult because in most case
s
>AP teachers are not trained in Ada and some "teach to the AP examination."  I
>am an ETS Computer Science Reader and can't imagine the language of the
>advanced placement exams changing over night.  
Nor can I. Also, the Computer Science Conference Programming Contest
allows solutions to be written in Pascal or (recently) C. Ada is not even
provided on the machines used in the contest. There was some noise in the
Ada business a couple of years ago about trying to change this, but it
will take Herculean effort. It's like pushing a rope...
>
>If the Ada vendors aren't doing their job in promoting Ada in the CS1 area,
>publishers are.  Many are interested in CS1 and CS2 Ada texts.  Mike's own is
>from Addison-Wesley.  Heath will have a Dale, Weems and McCormick CS1 text. 
>Others have expressed an interest in signing authors as quickly as possible,
>while some are waiting for 9X to be implemented.  
Indeed. There are now about 7 CS1-level books (annotated bibliography on
request). 
>
>We are finally looking seriously at switching to Ada in our first two courses
>and using C/C++ is some other courses.  One of the things that has prevented
>serious discussions up to now was the lack of texts designed for CS1 and CS2. 
>Good, relatively inexpensive, compilers are available.  
Good. I hope you can bring it off.
>
>> ...Shocking as it might seem to some of you, there
>> is a growing probability that Mike Feldman would vote yes on C++.
>> I can only swim upstream so long...
>> 
>> Mike Feldman
>
>Yes, but your swim has not been unprofitable to the Ada and educational
>communities.  There still are plenty of schools out here who are on the verge
>of changing their outlook on a language choice.  The 60% of the schools that
>use Pascal are not solidly rooted in that language.  Many of us need some
>convincing.  The compilers are there; good texts are available; students are
>demanding a C/Ada choice; etc.  
My point exactly. The missing link is ACTIVE outreach from the Ada community
to these schools. Many of them simply do not know that these books and
compilers are available. You and I, George, can do only so much. Where
is the rest of the community? The vendors? The user companies? 

How many teachers - other than readers of this group - know that Alsys has 
a VERY aggressive academic pricing program now? 

Why do I still go to SIGCSE and see teachers' jaws drop when they discover 
that Ada, that huge dinosaur of a language, can run on PC's? (I'm not kidding, 
folks! Those myths are alive and well in the heartland!)

I've got a constructive idea. This newshroup has a lot of readers in
government and industry. I'll bet EVERY ONE of them has a college or
university within, oh, say, 10 miles of their home or office. Suppose
each person invested, say, half a day carrying Ada materials - book lists,
compiler blurbs, etc. - to the nearest school. Would it be worth the
investment of time? Would your supervisor approve? Am I a Pollyanna
to think that maybe somebody would do it on his/her own time?

OK, folks. Shoot it down. Let's hear what's wrong with it :-)

Mike Feldman

Re: Ada as the language of first exposure

[agate!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-stat]

In article <1992Nov1.171219.606@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu
(Michael Feldman) writes:
>
>Why do I still go to SIGCSE and see teachers' jaws drop when they discover 
>that Ada, that huge dinosaur of a language, can run on PC's? (I'm not kidding,
>folks! Those myths are alive and well in the heartland!)
>

Speaking from/for the "heartland" of the US, we bloody well DO know
that Ada exists and runs on PCs :-).  Those folks must have been from
the coasts.

>I've got a constructive idea. This newshroup has a lot of readers in
>government and industry. I'll bet EVERY ONE of them has a college or
>university within, oh, say, 10 miles of their home or office. Suppose
>each person invested, say, half a day carrying Ada materials - book lists,
>compiler blurbs, etc. - to the nearest school. Would it be worth the
>investment of time? Would your supervisor approve? Am I a Pollyanna
>to think that maybe somebody would do it on his/her own time?
>
>OK, folks. Shoot it down. Let's hear what's wrong with it :-)
>

This is a fine idea, Mike, for some schools.  But I should hope that
some schools would consider Ada (or whatever) as a language not
because local industry demands it, but because it is superior in some
sense as a pedagogical vehicle.  For CS1 I'm having difficulty
justifying Ada over, say, Pascal or (what we use) Modula-2.  Some
people like to see students learning one language and paradigm well.
Others like to see more variety.  Both are legitimate positions, IMHO,
depending on local circumstances (faculty, mission, political
situation, etc.).  So even if Ada is "right" for later courses it
might not become popular in CS1.

For CS2 and beyond it's a lot easier in principle to justify Ada on
pedagogical grounds.  For example, we (among others) have been trying
to make industrial-strength component engineering (a.k.a.  "design for
reuse") a theme throughout a set of CS courses.  We have had some
success in teaching these ideas using Modula-2, and I think we know
how to do it better with Ada.  (We are planning some pilot studies.)
The key is not to set students loose with a CS1/CS2 text that covers
lots of "interesting" language features.  It's to concentrate on the
fundamental problems of component engineering and reuse and to provide
DEMONSTRABLY GOOD EXAMPLES of components and some JUSTIFIABLE
METHODOLOGY for good component design.

In my experience, CS1/CS2 books in general -- not just Ada-based --
are sorely lacking in this area.  This is not surprising: Most were
not intended for this purpose.  My point is simply that all the
teaching materials needed to make GOOD USE of Ada in a CS2 course, for
example, are NOT in place yet.  They aren't in place for Pascal or
Modula-2 or C or C++ or whatever, either.  But at OSU, at least,
changing languages is not something one takes lightly, and there must
be a darn good reason to do it or it just won't happen.  That's why
we're working on developing some of these missing pieces before
jumping to Ada.  All in good time...  It would be a shame to have some
of the driving forces behind us give up too early!

Cheers,
    -Bruce

Re: Ada as the language of first exposure

[yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!uofs!guinness.cs.uofs.edu!beidler]

In article <1992Oct29.195323.21913@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, pattis@cs.washing
ton.edu (Richard Pattis) writes:
|> Just two comments:
|> 
|> 1) We've been teaching Ada to our 1st year students hear aw UW for 4 years; 
we
|> now teach 1,200/year. We teach Ada to these students as an improved,
|> standardized Pascal. Sure we don't teach some things (tasking is the most
|> obvious). But we do teach exceptions (they are in Pascal, just not
|> controllable), operator overloading (with complex numbers),  packages,
|> generics (sorting and queues are the most obvious examples), and the
|> protection afforded by private types.
|> 
|> Ada contains many simple features that improve on Pascal: no begin-end block
s
|> in control structures, ... (more good stuff)

Rich's response clearly indicates he is doing the right things, like
teaching concepts, and giving the language second billing in the course.  It al
so
illustrates another important issue that is true about Ada.  Ada is not just
a programming language, it can be an enabling tool that helps in presenting 
larger software engineering issues.  Not only does Ada not get in the way, it
is a catalyst for developing software engineers instead of hackers.

|> 2) The price problem is still there, but much reduced. With NYU's free AdaEd
,
|> Alsys lowering prices to $500 for a bunch of machines, Meridian's sub $100
|> compiler for PCs, DEC's inclusion of Ada in their Academic Software Package,
|> the upcoming GNU Ada (GNAT) this complaint is not a show stopper.

Is the cost of the compiler an excuse used my many faculty who are looking for
a reason not to leave the comfort of their old text and old course notes?  
If it is, will they now look for another excuse, or do the right thing?  I am
sure that Rich would agree with me when I say that in making the transition to
teaching CS 1 (or CS 2) with Ada the instructor must make an investment in 
time and effort to make proper use of Ada, not just as a programming language,
but as an educational tool.

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|  John (Jack) Beidler				                   |
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