* Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada @ 2002-04-04 23:08 Kent Paul Dolan 2002-05-20 16:41 ` Mr Adam G Craggs 0 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: Kent Paul Dolan @ 2002-04-04 23:08 UTC (permalink / raw) Here, from a posting in comp.lang.logo, is a viewpoint entirely different from mine (and probably lots more valid) on what it takes to engage the mind of CS students today. Can Ada be wedged in here somehow, or extended with libraries to make the stuff described here possible for new Ada programmers? http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/guzdial/uploads/17/CACM_Nintendo_Generation.pdf FYI. xanthian. -- Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-04-04 23:08 Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada Kent Paul Dolan @ 2002-05-20 16:41 ` Mr Adam G Craggs 2002-05-22 3:27 ` Richard Riehle 0 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: Mr Adam G Craggs @ 2002-05-20 16:41 UTC (permalink / raw) I guess as you metion ADA you must be wanting to use it in your teaching. As i think the areas which are metioned in your attachment could be covered by other languages/environments more easily (eg. flash ...). I have seen some interesting work with ada to teach programming. But it depends on what part of programming you would like to teach. An example project analysing a web log: I have done this when I was fairly new to ada using a simple graphics library. Part 1 was just text based reading in an input file of websites visited and writing out various stats. Part 2 drawing various charts with the graphics library. For example as part of a small group of programmers - 5 we implemented a programming teaching tool. Although this is not based in Ada I did see some ada wrappers doing a similar sort of thing as part of the reasearch i did on the web before starting it. The main idea was to teach control flow so if else, loop, conditions in and event based environment using a robot, and a graphical environment for programming this was going to be a public exibit so no typing was alowed it had to be fast and easy to use. To build the robot we used a lego kit called lego mindstorms. But maybe if you want people to type the programs as was the case with the ada wrappers then thats great. I think if the effort is made many things are possible and i am sure rewards will be seen. A simple example is extrapolating from the situation one of my lecturers used to talk about spanners and this made people laugh alot and i am sure they rememebered more of what he said than someone who just went straight into explanations of librarys and such. Kent Paul Dolan wrote: > Here, from a posting in comp.lang.logo, is a viewpoint entirely > different from mine (and probably lots more valid) on what it takes to > engage the mind of CS students today. Can Ada be wedged in here > somehow, or extended with libraries to make the stuff described here > possible for new Ada programmers? > > http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/guzdial/uploads/17/CACM_Nintendo_Generation.pdf > > FYI. > > xanthian. > > -- > Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-20 16:41 ` Mr Adam G Craggs @ 2002-05-22 3:27 ` Richard Riehle 2002-05-23 4:34 ` Adrian Hoe 2002-05-23 15:15 ` Bill Tate 0 siblings, 2 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2002-05-22 3:27 UTC (permalink / raw) When I started teaching Ada at Naval Postgraduate School, the number of students enrolling for the class was so low it was not guaranteed there would be a class. With the help of a friendly professor who had been there for a long time, we were able to put together enough for one class. After that class, students began to tell other students about how much fun Ada was. We are ever so gradually making progress at increasing mind-share, as the caption put it. My class is called, Ada As A Second Language, so the students have almost all suffered through the horrors of C++ by the time they get to me. The sign on my office door says, "C++ Is Its Own Virus" and few of my students disagree with that sentiment. Just today, one of my students from the electrical engineering curriculum said how much he was enjoying Ada. I have even been able to persuade some students to use Ada for their Master's Degree Thesis. At lunch today, with a group of Marines from one of my other classes, and one Marine visitor, the visitor mentioned how some project was being converted from Ada to Java. I said, "That's a pretty stupid decision." He asked, "What would be better?" I replied, "Ada 95." He said that everything he had heard about Ada was pretty negative. This is an indication that there is still a lot of ignorance out there in the decision loop. We can, if we teach Ada well, grab some mind-share. However, if the students are confronted with negative attitudes when they try to use Ada (or recommend Ada) once they have graduated, it is pretty discouraging. On the bright side, some of my students will be in decision-making jobs when they graduate, and they may be able to help turn the tide of stupidity that characterizes so many programming language decisions. If you can teach Ada well and help the students enjoy it, all the better. I am seeing the results of teaching it badly in so many places. By the way, I expect to have an update of my little booklet, Ada Distilled, available for free download sometime in the next couple of weeks. I have been getting great feedback on it from all over the world. Apparently it has become useful for a lot of people who are trying to learn Ada on their own. I will announce it here when it was on adapower and adaic.org. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-22 3:27 ` Richard Riehle @ 2002-05-23 4:34 ` Adrian Hoe 2002-05-23 5:21 ` Michael Bode 2002-05-23 12:47 ` chris.danx 2002-05-23 15:15 ` Bill Tate 1 sibling, 2 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Adrian Hoe @ 2002-05-23 4:34 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:<3CEB102E.75D7D32@adaworks.com>... > When I started teaching Ada at Naval Postgraduate > School, the number of students enrolling for the > class was so low it was not guaranteed there would > be a class. > > With the help of a friendly professor who had been > there for a long time, we were able to put together > enough for one class. > > After that class, students began to tell other students > about how much fun Ada was. We are ever so > gradually making progress at increasing mind-share, > as the caption put it. > > My class is called, Ada As A Second Language, so the > students have almost all suffered through the horrors > of C++ by the time they get to me. The sign on my > office door says, "C++ Is Its Own Virus" and few > of my students disagree with that sentiment. > > Just today, one of my students from the electrical engineering > curriculum said how much he was enjoying Ada. I have even > been able to persuade some students to use Ada for their > Master's Degree Thesis. > > At lunch today, with a group of Marines from one of my other > classes, and one Marine visitor, the visitor mentioned how > some project was being converted from Ada to Java. I said, > "That's a pretty stupid decision." He asked, "What would be > better?" I replied, "Ada 95." He said that everything he had > heard about Ada was pretty negative. This is an indication > that there is still a lot of ignorance out there in the decision > loop. > > We can, if we teach Ada well, grab some mind-share. However, > if the students are confronted with negative attitudes when they > try to use Ada (or recommend Ada) once they have graduated, > it is pretty discouraging. On the bright side, some of my > students will be in decision-making jobs when they graduate, > and they may be able to help turn the tide of stupidity that > characterizes so many programming language decisions. > > If you can teach Ada well and help the students enjoy it, all > the better. I am seeing the results of teaching it badly in > so many places. I was having negative feedback from a local university in Malaysia, UTM, the only university here that teach Ada. Mainly, the students can't see the benefits of Ada and are obfuscated by promotion and words of mouth. The lecturer came to me and asked for some suggestion how he can introduce Ada more successfully. Judging that his confidence had been shaken, I told him to stick to Ada and show his confident to his students and be more persistent. I also told him to provide comparisons between Ada and other languages. He did it and his confident is back on again. :) He now will ask students who are not convinced in Ada to compete with his students who learn Ada. And the result is great. > By the way, I expect to have an update of my little booklet, > Ada Distilled, available for free download sometime in the > next couple of weeks. I have been getting great feedback on > it from all over the world. Apparently it has become useful > for a lot of people who are trying to learn Ada on their own. > I will announce it here when it was on adapower and adaic.org. BTW, Richard, why not include some comparisons in your booklet? If you need some examples, I am most willing to provide to you. > Richard Riehle -- -- Adrian Hoe -- http://adrianhoe.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-23 4:34 ` Adrian Hoe @ 2002-05-23 5:21 ` Michael Bode 2002-05-23 12:47 ` chris.danx 1 sibling, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Michael Bode @ 2002-05-23 5:21 UTC (permalink / raw) byhoe@greenlime.com (Adrian Hoe) writes: > BTW, Richard, why not include some comparisons in your booklet? If you > need some examples, I am most willing to provide to you. I've found http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/pascada.htm to be very helpful for me to get an initial understanding of where/what Ada is relative to a language that I know. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-23 4:34 ` Adrian Hoe 2002-05-23 5:21 ` Michael Bode @ 2002-05-23 12:47 ` chris.danx 2002-05-23 17:35 ` tmoran 1 sibling, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: chris.danx @ 2002-05-23 12:47 UTC (permalink / raw) "Adrian Hoe" <byhoe@greenlime.com> wrote in message news:9ff447f2.0205222034.5665a4c0@posting.google.com... > I was having negative feedback from a local university in Malaysia, > UTM, the only university here that teach Ada. Mainly, the students > can't see the benefits of Ada and are obfuscated by promotion and > words of mouth. The lecturer came to me and asked for some suggestion > how he can introduce Ada more successfully. Judging that his > confidence had been shaken, I told him to stick to Ada and show his > confident to his students and be more persistent. I also told him to > provide comparisons between Ada and other languages. He did it and his > confident is back on again. :) He now will ask students who are not > convinced in Ada to compete with his students who learn Ada. And the > result is great. Everyone here knows there's more to programming than a GUI, but new newbies don't know that. Almost all new newbies see gui programs and think it'd be cool to write apps like that. They take a course in a language and find they're writing console programs which don't have the same appeal. If the concepts of programming and a bit of "shinyness" can be successfully integrated students might be more interested. In our first year, the first thing our lecturer did was demonstrate a GUI based program written with the win32 binding. This seemed to grab the students attention, and it was maintained through the excercises they set for us. One involved creating a simple planetary system with a sun, planet and moon complete with shadows (all the exerices used Adagraph, not the win32 binding), which ppl had a lot of fun with (one guy had 9 planets and god knows how many moons working, just for the hell of it). Another involved plotting a bar chart of some data read from a file. None of them was really about graphics or guis, they were about programming concepts but were presented in a way that made it fun and 'pleasing on the eye'. In second year they switched to textual programs, and the enthusiasm for programming seemed much less than it was in first year. Second year (Ada) programming courses are about data structures, algortithms and Software designs concepts (generics, OO...), but that doesn't mean they couldn't have come up with exercises that use graphical elements to keep interest (it just takes some imagination). Perhaps that might have offset the slightly increased difficulty of the exercises. Of course there is always the danger of students focusing more on the aesthetic quality of the program, but hopefully by making the graphical element relatively simple (and by getting tutors to keey an eye on students) that could be avoided (the graphical elements could also be weighted much less, like 1 (or 0) mark(s) for the whole exerice and 9 for the rest). Just a thought, Chris ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-23 12:47 ` chris.danx @ 2002-05-23 17:35 ` tmoran 2002-05-23 19:00 ` chris.danx 0 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2002-05-23 17:35 UTC (permalink / raw) > exercises that use graphical elements to keep interest How about audio or video (doesn't every PC these days have a cheap microphone and webcam?). Making the moons whirl around the live image of the instructor's head would seem a nice challenge. ;) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-23 17:35 ` tmoran @ 2002-05-23 19:00 ` chris.danx 0 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: chris.danx @ 2002-05-23 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw) <tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message news:FL9H8.99$1w4.27603166@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com... > Making the moons whirl around the live > image of the instructor's head would seem a nice challenge. ;) :) That reminds me of another exercise they set for us, landing a rocket on a pad, although I have no idea why mention of our instructors should remind of rockets :) Our lecturer, Quintin offered a crate of beer to the person who completed the landing in the fastest time over the whole module. That seemed to be a great motivator and stimulated alot of interest in programming. :D Chris ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-22 3:27 ` Richard Riehle 2002-05-23 4:34 ` Adrian Hoe @ 2002-05-23 15:15 ` Bill Tate 2002-05-24 11:22 ` Marc A. Criley 1 sibling, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: Bill Tate @ 2002-05-23 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:<3CEB102E.75D7D32@adaworks.com>... [snip] > After that class, students began to tell other students > about how much fun Ada was. We are ever so > gradually making progress at increasing mind-share, > as the caption put it. > .... > My class is called, Ada As A Second Language, so the > students have almost all suffered through the horrors > of C++ by the time they get to me. The sign on my > office door says, "C++ Is Its Own Virus" and few > of my students disagree with that sentiment. > ... > At lunch today, with a group of Marines from one of my other > classes, and one Marine visitor, the visitor mentioned how > some project was being converted from Ada to Java. I said, > "That's a pretty stupid decision." He asked, "What would be > better?" I replied, "Ada 95." He said that everything he had > heard about Ada was pretty negative. This is an indication > that there is still a lot of ignorance out there in the decision > loop. > The posts above make a number of good suggestions but I would strongly advise backing up even earlier. I would point to the objectives of the Python community's CPE (Computer programming for everyone) initiative. It seeks to get people exposed to computer programming well before they reach college. If Ada is going to achieve "greater" mindshare (for all the right reasons), it would seem to me that you have to deal with the difficult problem of overcoming some really bad software development habits learned by programmers very early on, e.g., pre-college. Ada strongly encourages greater discipline in the "engineering" of software; not the kind of attitude typically exhibited by those of the "hacker" and "design-by-keyboard" persuasion (to my great disappointment - I include no small number of CS graduates in this crowd). Mix that with a seemingly endless supply of individuals who believe themselves to possess "god-like" abilities when it comes to their software development prowess and everything points to the need for early intervention. Of course, there is the "cold turkey" approach of throwing 100K SLOC of C++ code in front of potential adopters and telling them to "maintain it." :>) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-23 15:15 ` Bill Tate @ 2002-05-24 11:22 ` Marc A. Criley 2002-05-24 12:55 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Marc A. Criley @ 2002-05-24 11:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Bill Tate wrote: > > Mix that with a seemingly endless supply of individuals who > believe themselves to possess "god-like" abilities when it comes to > their software development prowess and everything points to the need > for early intervention. Every programmer thinks they're above average. Half of them are wrong. :-) :-) :-) Marc A. Criley ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-24 11:22 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2002-05-24 12:55 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet 2002-05-24 13:43 ` Preben Randhol 2002-05-24 13:26 ` Marin David Condic 2002-05-24 17:24 ` Suzie Cube 2 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: Jean-Marc Bourguet @ 2002-05-24 12:55 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada95@earthlink.net> writes: > Bill Tate wrote: > > > > Mix that with a seemingly endless supply of individuals who > > believe themselves to possess "god-like" abilities when it comes to > > their software development prowess and everything points to the need > > for early intervention. > > Every programmer thinks they're above average. > > Half of them are wrong. More than half. I think you are confusing average and median. -- Jean-Marc ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-24 12:55 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet @ 2002-05-24 13:43 ` Preben Randhol 0 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2002-05-24 13:43 UTC (permalink / raw) On 24 May 2002 14:55:42 +0200, Jean-Marc Bourguet wrote: > "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada95@earthlink.net> writes: >> >> Every programmer thinks they're above average. >> >> Half of them are wrong. > > More than half. I think you are confusing average and median. Or less than half, depends on the distribution of your data. The difference between the average and median can tell you some things abouti that. Preben ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-24 11:22 ` Marc A. Criley 2002-05-24 12:55 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet @ 2002-05-24 13:26 ` Marin David Condic 2002-05-24 17:24 ` Suzie Cube 2 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-05-24 13:26 UTC (permalink / raw) But most programmers have more than the average (mean) number of legs. Maybe we just need to mix some Integer and Floating point numbers to make every programmer above average? :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada95@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:3CEE22EA.E24736D9@earthlink.net... > > Every programmer thinks they're above average. > > Half of them are wrong. > > :-) :-) :-) > > > Marc A. Criley ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-24 11:22 ` Marc A. Criley 2002-05-24 12:55 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet 2002-05-24 13:26 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-05-24 17:24 ` Suzie Cube 2002-05-26 17:09 ` Marc A. Criley 2 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread From: Suzie Cube @ 2002-05-24 17:24 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada95@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:3CEE22EA.E24736D9@earthlink.net... > Bill Tate wrote: > > > > Mix that with a seemingly endless supply of individuals who > > believe themselves to possess "god-like" abilities when it comes to > > their software development prowess and everything points to the need > > for early intervention. > > Every programmer thinks they're above average. > > Half of them are wrong. > > :-) :-) :-) > > > Marc A. Criley except in Lake Wobegon. ;-) ;-) ;-) Suzette Norby ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada 2002-05-24 17:24 ` Suzie Cube @ 2002-05-26 17:09 ` Marc A. Criley 0 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread From: Marc A. Criley @ 2002-05-26 17:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Suzie Cube wrote: > > "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada95@earthlink.net> wrote in message > news:3CEE22EA.E24736D9@earthlink.net... > > Bill Tate wrote: > > > > > > Mix that with a seemingly endless supply of individuals who > > > believe themselves to possess "god-like" abilities when it comes to > > > their software development prowess and everything points to the need > > > for early intervention. > > > > Every programmer thinks they're above average. > > > > Half of them are wrong. > > > > :-) :-) :-) > > > > > > Marc A. Criley > > except in Lake Wobegon. > > ;-) ;-) ;-) > > Suzette Norby That is true, must be the Powdermilk Biscuits (tm) ... Marc A. Criley Ex-patriate Minnesotan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2002-05-26 17:09 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 15+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2002-04-04 23:08 Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada Kent Paul Dolan 2002-05-20 16:41 ` Mr Adam G Craggs 2002-05-22 3:27 ` Richard Riehle 2002-05-23 4:34 ` Adrian Hoe 2002-05-23 5:21 ` Michael Bode 2002-05-23 12:47 ` chris.danx 2002-05-23 17:35 ` tmoran 2002-05-23 19:00 ` chris.danx 2002-05-23 15:15 ` Bill Tate 2002-05-24 11:22 ` Marc A. Criley 2002-05-24 12:55 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet 2002-05-24 13:43 ` Preben Randhol 2002-05-24 13:26 ` Marin David Condic 2002-05-24 17:24 ` Suzie Cube 2002-05-26 17:09 ` Marc A. Criley
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