From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 10261c,cfbb90c56a313e70 X-Google-Attributes: gid10261c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,cfbb90c56a313e70 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-09-05 18:11:43 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-east!sn-xit-uk!supernews.com!195.40.0.160.MISMATCH!easynet-tele!easynet.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!gxn.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!server4.netnews.ja.net!server2.netnews.ja.net!newshost.central.susx.ac.uk!news.bton.ac.uk!not-for-mail From: John English Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.pascal.misc Subject: Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 01:38:59 +0100 Organization: University of Brighton Message-ID: <39B59223.667C085D@brighton.ac.uk> References: <8o3s2a$9ph$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8o4bfq$v0h$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net> <8obv01$7hu1@news.cis.okstate.edu> <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com> <8ofh6j$2anb@drn.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dialin-b2.bton.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: saturn.bton.ac.uk 968200489 9353 194.81.199.182 (6 Sep 2000 00:34:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@bton.ac.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Sep 2000 00:34:49 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:505 comp.lang.pascal.misc:257 Date: 2000-09-06T00:34:49+00:00 List-Id: Marco van de Voort wrote: > I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > course! Expect some interesting times... examples might include (from a 2nd year group I taught, having taught Ada as a first language in their 1st year): 1) Is it spelt RuntimeException or RunTimeException? Case sensitivity is fine as long as you *know* whether the API designers considered "run time" to be one word or two... 2) Is it "myDate.getMinutes()" or "myDate.getMinute()"? Can I really be bothered to spend my whole life with my nose in an API reference? 3) Null statements are fun: while (someCondition); doSomething(); Shown this on a poor quality hardcopy produced by the student, the faint smudge at the end of the condition might not be recognised as a semicolon at first glance... but the compiler is happy to compile your code without warnings either way... 4) Things like "i = j;" or "if (i == j) ..." have a nasty habit of surprising students when i and j aren't simple types like ints... 5) All the compilers I use (JDK, Jikes, GJ) have very poor error reporting compared to GNAT. The messages can point to anywhere within half-a-dozen lines of the real error and tell you something completely misleading about it. 6) I'd better stop now, hadn't I? :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk -----------------------------------------------------------------