Re: How Would a Hobbyist Learn Ada?

[Thomas Locke <thomas@kenshi.dk>]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Have you seen this,
> David J. Naiditch, Rendevouz with Ada 95.


Nope, haven't seen that. Thanks!


> Also, start at chapter 2, not 1, in John English's book,
> http://www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/~je/adacraft/ch02.htm


A very nice link. Thanks again Georg.


> The Wikibook has just a few tutorial pages; would you think
> that tutorial examples alongside the concepts will help?


YES!

For the average IQ person, I believe examples are much easier to grasp 
than pure concepts. Combine the two, and everything is golden, IMHO.

I think a good example of a near perfect online "manual" is how the PHP 
folks have done it.

http://php.net/manual

I know that PHP is a *much* simpler language to write a manual for, as 
we're not as close to the metal as with Ada, but the concept of having 
examples littered all over the place is a good one. Also the user 
comments can be a great help.

The cross-references are also a great help, e.g. on the time() manual 
pages there are links to stuff like microtime() and date(), as their 
functionality overlaps to a certain degree.


> Or does the need to have something fully targetted at specific
> questions? 


I think this is handled quite well @ http://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Ada

Perhaps a link to that site could be put on the wiki - somewhere 
visible.  :o)

/Thomas