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Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:39:45 -0400
From: "Peter C. Chapin" <pchapin@sover.net>
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Subject: Re: Textbooks (Was: Decline?)
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Date: 2008-03-14T07:39:45-04:00
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Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:

> How does Burns' and Wellings' "Concurrent and Real-Time Programming in
> Ada" compare to "Programming in Ada 2005" as a textbook?

I don't think the Burns/Wellings book would make a good textbook... at 
least not in a first course on Ada. It is too specialized and doesn't 
spend much time talking about the non-tasking aspects of the language. 
It would probably be wonderful for a correspondingly specialized course 
but for a general course on Ada, it isn't really what one would want.

I'm teaching Ada this semester and I am *not* using the Barnes book as 
the text book. I considered doing so. However, the problem is that the 
Barnes book is a bit too detailed; it contains all kinds of information 
that my first time Ada programmers would probably find distracting 
and/or confusing. I did show them the book in class and said, "If you 
are interested in going further with Ada you should definitely get a 
copy of this book." A couple of them wrote down the ISBN but I'm not 
sure if any of them did buy it.

For a text book in my class I've been using some free resources such as 
the Wikibook and "Ada Distilled." However, I haven't been entirely 
satisfied with that. The problem is that those resources present the 
material in an order that isn't compatible with my approach to teaching. 
Specifically they tend to throw moderately advanced topics into the 
middle of discussions on more elementary topics. Thus I have to tell my 
students, "read sections x, y, and z, but skip subsections x.3, y.5, and 
the material on blah." These instructions are more complicated than 
necessary and I'm sure they make the readings seem a bit disconnected.

I'm working with second year students so a nice textbook would be 
helpful. When I teach the seniors I usually just say, "This material is 
covered in the book," and leave it to them to figure out where. In that 
case a carefully organized textbook is less necessary.

Peter