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: 103376,3885b7fd66a1db28 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-12-27 09:56:43 PST Message-ID: <3E0C93E7.3020808@cogeco.ca> From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Why is Ada NOT a good choice for a beginner to programming? References: <15FN9.2313$c6.2612@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com> <1ndi0v4klkht639aqec7al682l3ks1pgjf@4ax.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 12:54:47 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.96.47.195 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1041011687 198.96.47.195 (Fri, 27 Dec 2002 12:54:47 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 12:54:47 EST Organization: Bell Sympatico Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!torn!webster!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:32336 Date: 2002-12-27T12:54:47-05:00 List-Id: faust wrote: >>it would start a silly flame war. (Didn't Dijkstra's also say teaching >>BASIC should require a prison sentence? Or was that some other >>language? > > ""The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, > be regarded as a criminal offense." > Edsger Dijkstra " I don't believe that Dijkstra had much nice to say about any language, including the predecessor to Ada. For my $0.02, I don't think it really matters what they start in. It is true however, that early experience _can_ be habit forming, but this does not necessarily mean the result is predetermined. I think that being "self taught" can be one of the limiting factors however. If no one ever pushed you in the direction of Ada, you might never see the reason why it was worth the effort. This is where you need a selling job to be done, and on top of that, the beginner's experience needs to be smoother than it currently is. The sad reality is (for beginners) is that if it is hard to use, and you see no "benefit for me" in this difficulty, then you'll stick with what you know, or try something else. >>One should learn *many* programming languages, if one is serious about >>programming. But one should not start with BASIC (or C, or assembly). > > I plan to teach my 12 year old son to program. > I am vacillating between Ada and Scheme. > I'll probably go with Scheme since there is an excellent and powerful > free envirnoment for it ( Dr Scheme ) ... > (from Basho) Like writing a book, you must "know your audience". If I ever attempted to teach Ada to my teen-aged daughter, her eyes would just glaze over and she would say "sure, dad!" Yet she was able to learn a "tich" of programming by using Qbasic that was shipped free with Windows95 (you have to hunt for it on the CD and install it manually). There QBasic acted as both the run environment and the IDE for her, keeping things very simple. She'll not likely ever become a professional, but at least she has some concept now of how things work. Now your response might be that I did a poor job of selling Ada to her, and I'd have to say you were right. But how do you sell difficult concepts to a young audience that is already numbed by the complexity of the computer world as they initially see it? Even we get "numbed" by it, ourselves (or I get increasingly numbed as I age each new year ;-) ) What concerns me much more is that when she graduated from high school, only 2 out of 260 kids announced that they were going to persue a career in computer science/programming. I expect that out of those 2, at least one of them will quickly want to move into management. Who then, over the next decade, is going to do all the grunt work of programming? Maybe this sample is not representative of the trend, but I find this statistical sample rather disturbing. :-( -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg