Re: Ada for C programmers

[Dave Wood <dpw@thomsoft.com>]

Rich Maggio wrote:
> 
> I just want to toss something out there to see what some of you think about this.
> 
> When C++ became "all the rage", there came many books targeted to the C programmer
> that was moving to C++ and OO thinking.  Wouldn't one for Ada be useful?
> 
> I am not saying that C better than Ada or anything, but the fact of the matter is
> that there are LOTS of seasoned C programmers out there.  If the idea is to try to
> "convert" as many C programmers over to Ada as possible, wouldn't such a guide/book
> be valuable to the "Ada cause"?  Is there such a book?  Has anyone contemplated
> putting such a book/document together?
> 
> If such a book existed, it would have made my life much easier.  I am not
> suggesting that it should be a translation manual, but more of a philosophical
> book.  I found that I had to make some fundamental changes about how I looked at
> a problem in order to solve it with good Ada code.  Letting go of "pointers all over
> the place" was hard.  Grasping the concept of generic packages was difficult at first,
> but I was converted when I started really using them.  A book that compared the
> C library concept and the Ada package (generic or otherwise) concept would have saved
> me quite a number of frustrating moments.  I suspect that there are many other programmers
> out there that would share the same frustration.
> 
> Any thoughts?

Such a beast is already near completion.  "Ada 95 for C and C++ Programmers", by 
Simon Johnston and published by Addison Wesley Longman, will be available at
your local book shop this spring.  It will also have a free Ada 95 compiler tucked 
into the back cover.

An abbreviated version in the form of a whitepaper was available in the Home of the 
Brave Ada Programmers web page the last time I was snooping around there.

-- Dave Wood
-- Product Manager, ObjectAda for Windows
-- Aonix - "Ada with an Attitude"
-- http://www.aonix.com