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

[Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

Larry Kilgallen wrote:
> 
> 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.
>
> [snip...]
>

I, too, first learned Ada 83 by reading the LRM. However, I agree with
Robert this time. The Ada 95 RM is NOT as good a place to start learning
Ada as the Ada 83 RM. The Ada 83 RM tended to discuss all of a topic in
one place, with some references to other parts of the manual. In the Ada
95 RM, I'm always flipping pages to find the whole story. Even then, I
often don't see it until I read the Rationale. I suspect this is partly
a consequence of the more "decoupled" nature of Ada 95 (with child
packages and tagged types, the CODE is certainly more spread around!).
It is also partly a consequence of being even more rigorous and
"legalistic" in style in the Ada 95 RM as opposed to the Ada 83 RM; this
is a GOOD THING for the language, but not for novices.

On the other hand, the Ada 95 Rationale IS a good place to learn the
extensions that Ada 95 makes to Ada 83, at least if you are generally
familiar with Ada 83. 

I don't have experience with entry level tutorials; I assume Lovelace
would be a good place to start.

> Larry Kilgallen

-- 
- Stephe