Re: "C" vrs ADA

[daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)]

> 	  Be aware that it is a very complex language (Carnegie
> 	  Mellon University is rumored to have required it for all sophomores-
> 	  which resulted in flunking out half their sophomore class) ...

It has been some time since I've been at CMU, having graduated in '83, but
that does sound more like rumor than anything else.  First of all, typically
all (Science and Engineering) Freshman take the introductory CS courses, 
which back in my day were in either Fortran (if you weren't planning to go on
in CS) or Pascal (if you were planning to go on in CS).  But since Ada is very
similar to Pascal (as far as Pascal will take you), it would have made a much
simpler transition to a more powerful language than going to C language.  
Though if they were going to change, I'd expect them to go to Modula2.  I think
by now just about all the computer courses are taught on PCs, so you'd have to
teach something that's well established on IBM or Mac machines.  Do real Ada
implementations exist for both of these.

Now, as far as CMU Sophomore CS classes go, it used to be very tough.  The
Sophomore level CS class in my day (15-211) had an approximately 50%
attrition rate, though for those who stuck it out, I don't think many if any
typically failed.  No real programming went on for half the class; at the 
beginning, they went through state and turing machines, regular expression,
general language control structures, and formal program proof.  That last
one is a real killer.  Anyway, shortly after I took the course, they split
it up into two separate ones that cover the same material.  I think there
were too many complaints about the difficulty of the course.

By the way, Ada wasn't developed by the DoD, though the required features
were.  They then held a language design competition.  Ada was the winner,
and it came out of a French affiliate of Honeywell, as I recall.  I've never
really used it myself, but in the compiler design course I took in college
we were required to design a language that at least had to start out looking
like Ada.  No one got far enough to implement all of the complicated stuff,
of course, most of the final compilers were basically PASCAL level with the
syntax of Ada.
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
"The A2000 Guy"                    PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
     "God, I wish I was sailing again"	-Jimmy Buffett, Dave Haynie