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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no 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: 2003-01-10 02:50:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!wn13feed!wn11feed!worldnet.att.net!207.217.77.102!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Why is Ada a good choice for an ambitious beginner to programming Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:59:23 -0800 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3E1EA78B.BEA07C27@adaworks.com> References: <5ad0dd8a.0212210251.63b87aba@posting.google.com> <3e140e05.3654845@news.demon.co.uk> <3E1E353A.3EC76758@adaworks.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 41.b2.41.85 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 10 Jan 2003 10:50:22 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:32875 Date: 2003-01-10T10:50:22+00:00 List-Id: 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