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=1.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,f96ca9a3c3a350c8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-21 20:26:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsfeed0.news.atl.earthlink.net!news.atl.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Grabbing Mindshare in the Student Population for Ada Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:27:43 -0700 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3CEB102E.75D7D32@adaworks.com> References: <3CE92722.BB45D087@baesystems.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.bb.24.40 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 22 May 2002 03:25:08 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:24499 Date: 2002-05-22T03:25:08+00:00 List-Id: 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