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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Learning Windows 95 programming with Ada?
Date: 1997/12/04
Message-ID: <1997Dec4.072952.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <348faacf.18643984@news.thegrid.net>
 <881119612.87snx@jvdsys.nextjk.stuyts.nl>
 <01bd000f$f8a452b0$baeb649b@freeman>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-12-04T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <01bd000f$f8a452b0$baeb649b@freeman>, "Jon Jensen" <jon.jensen@hci.utah.edu> writes:

> While you may be able to program Windows applications in Ada it doesn't
> mean that you should - especially considering it's now legal not to.

Sorry, this is not comp.lang.ada.military, and since you post from a .edu
domain I don't understand why you feel there is any notion of "legal"
involved.  I have been using Ada for 9 years without a mandate.

> IMHO if you want to be good at Windows programming and really understand
> what's going on you need to learn it from the C/C++ end.  This forces a
> certain level of discipline and understanding that I have never seen from
> someone who jumped into it at the VB or Delphi level (or at the Ada or
> Modula-2 level).

While that is a fair critique of Microsoft's documentation, things need
not be that way.  Say, all you accomplished Ada authors reading this 
newsgroup -- doesn't the number of people asking Windows-specific
questions make for a larger book-buying public than those looking
to learn abstract data-structures, safety-critical programming, etc.?

I realize the courseware books are a more "pure" form of computer
science, and stooping to discuss an ugly pile of disjoint APIs may
be distasteful.  Wouldn't publishers be attracted to a title like
"Programming for Win32 in Ada" ?  Or do publishers feel any book
with Ada in the title must be something used in CS courses rather
than sold in ordinary bookstores ?

Aside from the income possibilities, you would be doing a great
thing for the popularity of Ada.

Larry Kilgallen