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: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-24 17:14:52 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!beamish.news.atl.earthlink.net!guinness.news.atl.earthlink.net!news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 17:15:50 -0700 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3EA87E36.875E6BDF@adaworks.com> References: <3E4E8F8C.9C096985@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0302250710.5549baaf@posting.google.com> <3E5C7033.BD5DC462@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0302260618.7506cba7@posting.google.com> <3E5CF5C6.84822F57@adaworks.com> <8qkczsAcGcn+Ew83@nildram.co.uk> <3EA04A1E.CAFC1FEF@adaworks.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 41.b2.61.5a Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 25 Apr 2003 00:14:51 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:36512 Date: 2003-04-25T00:14:51+00:00 List-Id: Georg Bauhaus wrote: > In comp.lang.ada Richard Riehle wrote: > : In fact, Ada, once some fundamental > : ideas are understood, is not that difficult. > > : The most > : difficult idea for many programmers to grasp is the set > : of visibility rules in Ada. > > Could it be that rules like these are not enough at the > center of introductions to Ada? I remember an exposition > of child packages (somewhere in GNAT documentation?) > pointing readers to their relation to nested packages. > It does so at some length, and I think it was the length, > including examples, that I found so helpful. In my experience, once the Ada programmer understands the visibilty rules, everything else falls into place. It is, therefore, important to gently introduce some of those rules as part of the learning process. If one tries to introduce all of them at once, it can overwhelm the student to the point where they throw up their hands screaming things such as, "I hate this f........ing bureaucratic language." A programmer who learns to use the visibility rules to advantage will eventually be an outstanding Ada programmer. Richard Riehle