Re: Why is Ada a good choice for an ambitious beginner to programming

[Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com>]

David Wright wrote:

> With the self-teaching hobbyist and non-tertiary
> inclined in mind, would it really be such an invidious
> task for someone to condescend to write a "Comparative
> Programming Paradigms and Languages" for (Inquisitive)
> Dummies? <8-))

At Naval Postgraduate School we have just such a class for
our graduate students in computer science.  Unfortunately, it
is not, at present, a required class.   This class goes much
deeper than simply comparing languages, mostly because
it is a graduate level course, but it does cover both the
imperative and functional languages, along with some other
experimental approaches.

There a number of good books, some of which are more
in-depth than others.   A good short book that is a little
too thin on theoretical foundations for a graduate course,
is by Wilson and Clark and published by Addison-Wesley.
The ISBN is 0-201-71012-9.

Another excellent book is by Michael Scott and published
by Morgan-Kauffman.  This is more extensive in its treatment
but not for the faint-of-heart.    I don't have the ISBN handy.
You might also look at books by Sethi, Sebesta, or several
others.

The Michael Scott book and the Wilson and Clark book are
both fair to Ada, at least in their current edition.   Many
others dimiss Ada, or fail to describe it in its current
form.

Imperative languages, which include most object-oriented
languages,  have control structures described in the paper
by Jacopini and Bohm in 1966.  Many programmers grow
up thinking this is the only way to think about the creation
of software.   On the other hand, those who are fans of
functional languages, especially old LISPers, tend to be
pretty set in their ways, as well.

The reality is that one should have many kinds of tools in
their toolbox and understand when to use which.  Some
of these tools are imperative languages, others are functional
languages, logic languages, and so on.   Too bad Dr. Dewar
is not reading this forum anymore.  He would provide some
stimulating insight into this topic.

Have fun,

Richard Riehle