Textbooks vs. Reference Manuals (was: Need help bad!!!!! (sic))

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

n article <dewar.846423455@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> Second, the RM is not at all the right source to point people to. Instead
> they need to be reading a good text book. Much of the RM is inpenetrable
> even to most of the experts, unless you already understand 95% of what
> you need already. It *is* good for filling in the remaining subtle 5%

Harrumph :-)

When I learned Ada, it was from the DEC documentation, which is
mainly their rendition of the Ada 83 reference manual.  Two other
volumes in the DEC Ada documentation give some VMS details, but
the only other book I found helpful was the style guide.

Lately I have been looking at textbooks, primarily for Ada 95
material.  Other than that new material, I have not read anything
which surprises me.

So did I learn Ada in a horribly inefficient manner, or does Ada 95
look straightforward due to having done object-oriented programming
before, or is Ada easier proportional to how many languages one has
used before, or is it easier if none of them was C ?

We all tend to recommend what works for ourselves.  My one training
axiom in industry is that some prefer a class, some prefer a mentor
and some prefer a set of books, but that division does not seem
relevant to the book choice guidance which has Robert provided.

Larry Kilgallen