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From: Aron Felix Gurski <agurski@sn.no>
Subject: Re: What is Ada used for???
Date: 1996/10/09
Date: 1996-10-09T00:00:00+00:00	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <325BF6AD.1A11@sn.no> (raw)
In-Reply-To: AE813FAA-56A9E@206.107.67.23


Sean Roehnelt wrote:
> 
> I'm taking my first programming class at school, and want to know where Ada
> fits in to the grand scheme of things....
> 
> shouldn't I be learning c++

What makes you think that you should be learning C++? Just because it is
the current "in" language? 

At this stage in your studies, you are *much* better off learning Ada 95
than one of the C/C++ dialects. Ada 95 (and other languages, like
Modula-2, Modula-3 and Eiffel, by the way) are far better at teaching
you the discipline that you will need to learn in order to become a
*good* programmer. My own programs have all sorts of checks in them to
make sure that none of the other programs running have corrupted my
programs' data. Whenever I have found that a program *has* corrupted my
programs, I have *invariably* found that it was a program with a C
run-time library in it. (Both C and C++ programmers *still* haven't
learnt to use pointers properly, and occasionally have uninitialized
pointers that accidentally point into other programs' memory -- and then
start writing there. This is not to say that it is not possible to write
good software in C or C++; it just doesn't seem to happen all that
often.)

> isn't Ada old and outdated?

In as much as the new Ada 95 standard became a standard in 1995, I
wouldn't exactly call it "old and outdated". 

> 
> I don't know, and my instructor hasn't been able to clearify this for me at
> all.
> 
> thanks,
> sean

From someone who graduated 25 years ago: good luck with your studies!

					-- Aron




  reply	other threads:[~1996-10-09  0:00 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
1996-10-09  0:00 What is Ada used for??? Sean Roehnelt
1996-10-09  0:00 ` Aron Felix Gurski [this message]
1996-10-09  0:00   ` Robert Dewar
     [not found] ` <AE817A13-1E0BE@206.107.67.30>
1996-10-09  0:00   ` Michael Feldman
1996-10-21  0:00     ` Jin Xue Kuang
1996-10-15  0:00   ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-10-10  0:00 ` Robert S. White
1996-10-10  0:00   ` Larry Kilgallen
1996-10-10  0:00 ` Jason Smith
1996-10-10  0:00   ` Robert S. White
1996-10-20  0:00   ` Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?) Richard Riehle
1996-10-21  0:00     ` Larry Kilgallen
1996-10-21  0:00     ` Robert Dewar
1996-10-22  0:00       ` whiting_ms@corning.com (Matt Whiting)
1996-10-22  0:00     ` Choosing C++ instead of Ada Stanley R. Allen
1996-10-24  0:00       ` William Clodius
1996-10-25  0:00         ` Andrew Dunstan
1996-10-25  0:00           ` John DiCamillo
1996-10-25  0:00         ` Poutanen Olavi
1996-10-25  0:00           ` jim hopper
1996-10-25  0:00         ` Larry Kilgallen
1996-10-26  0:00       ` Ken Garlington
1996-10-27  0:00         ` Matthew Heaney
1996-10-28  0:00           ` David Emery
1996-10-28  0:00             ` Rush Kester
1996-10-30  0:00               ` Ed Falis
1996-10-28  0:00           ` Thomas Kendelbacher
1996-10-31  0:00             ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-11-04  0:00             ` Robert Dewar
1996-10-30  0:00           ` David Emery
1996-10-28  0:00         ` Poutanen Olavi
1996-10-25  0:00     ` Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?) Kazimir Majorinc
1996-10-21  0:00   ` Robert B. Love 
1996-10-24  0:00     ` Richard Riehle
1996-10-25  0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1996-10-26  0:00 ` Choosing C++ instead of Ada Robert I. Eachus
1996-10-29  0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1996-10-30  0:00 ` Arlene S. Felton
1996-11-04  0:00   ` nasser
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