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* (text)book for Ada noob
@ 2012-10-24  8:28 Gour
  2012-10-24  9:41 ` Brian Drummond
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 30+ messages in thread
From: Gour @ 2012-10-24  8:28 UTC (permalink / raw)


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Hello!

I'm newly 'converted' to Ada (thanks to all folks in #ada providing
tons of info and patiently answering my questions) and since I like
reading dead-tree books (to reduce time required to stare at computer
screen) and learn from them, I'm looking for advice which would be good
book(s) to buy?

my background: I graduated computer engineering on the university many
years ago and had to learn several programming languages starting with
Fortran & Pascal and then C. Learnt a bit of Prolog and did my thesis
using (Zortech C++).

However, after formal education I did not do much programming for many
years until few years ago when I wanted to learn some new language,
possibly higher-level than C(++) which would be more safe and not to
fiddle with pointers and bugs resulting from their (mis)use.

Haskell looked interesting, I played with it for quite some time, but
the world of GUI (not to speak about other aspects of its ecosystem)
was quite raw.

We even managed to find few contributors being ready to work on the
project, but the Haskell learning curve was too steep for them and I
admit I do not grok monads very well.

The project stalled and after some I considered D (having some FP
features) and being (hopefully) more type-safe than C(++).

However, it seems that almost nobody is writing (GUI) apps in D and
not seeing the light, we thought to be pragmatic...use
Python+wxpython+cython (when required for speed reasons).

But that little worm in my mind was keep telling me that Python might
not be the best choice for larger program we plan to write and
maintain for several years.

That has finally brought me to consider Ada (and some people suggested
Modula-2/3), but after some research done, Ada and its ecosystem
(Gnat/Gps/GtkAda...) looks as dream-land. :-)

The points stated in

http://www.adaic.org/learn/materials/intro/part1/#features

article, look as something we were always looking for.  :-)

So, now I'm sold. ;)

about the project: I want to write open-source & multi-platform
desktop application (GtkAda seems to be the most mature and I like
Gtk+ and use Xfce) which has to use 3rd party (GPLv2+) C-library as
well as some complete Sqlite3 bindings.

Recently I moved from Linux (which I was using since '99) to
Free(PC)BSD which will be our native development platform.

Considering I am not tied to any legacy code, I'm free to take
advantage of new features provide in Ada 2005/2012.

When asking about adequate Ada book,  I was recommended Cohen's Ada as
Second Language, but I see it's a bit old, new copy costs $943 and only
used copies (don't know how much it would cost me with the shipping to
Croatia).

Another possibility I see in Barnes' Programming in Ada 2005.

What do you think would be more appropriate one for my
needs/skills/etc. and still possibly not too outdated and/or providing
some info of Ada's new(er) features?

Something else?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places 
of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the 
living entity and bewilders him.

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 30+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2012-11-16  9:21 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 30+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2012-10-24  8:28 (text)book for Ada noob Gour
2012-10-24  9:41 ` Brian Drummond
2012-10-24 11:47   ` Gour
2012-10-24 21:32     ` Brian Drummond
2012-10-24 21:51       ` Gour
2012-10-24  9:51 ` Vinzent Höfler
2012-10-24 11:06   ` Patrick
2012-10-24 11:50     ` Gour
2012-10-24 13:01       ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
2012-10-24 13:14       ` Patrick
2012-10-24 13:59         ` Gour
2012-10-24 14:11           ` Patrick
2012-10-24 18:53             ` Gour
2012-10-25 10:52               ` Patrick
2012-10-25 11:53                 ` Gour
2012-10-24 14:18           ` Georg Bauhaus
2012-10-24 19:04             ` Gour
2012-10-24 14:28         ` Gour
2012-10-24 15:47           ` Patrick
     [not found]       ` <4dcg88d8f4cj1vtqn8psgkd990urqlepaa@invalid.netcom.com>
2012-10-24 18:56         ` Gour
2012-10-30 10:35           ` Marius Amado-Alves
2012-10-30 20:15             ` Gour
2012-10-30 22:16               ` Jesperq
2012-10-30 23:03               ` Marius Amado-Alves
2012-10-24 21:17 ` Jeffrey Carter
2012-10-24 21:26   ` Gour
2012-11-09  6:00   ` Randy Brukardt
2012-11-09 17:33     ` Jeffrey Carter
2012-10-25 11:05 ` Paul Rubin
2012-10-25 11:44   ` Simon Wright

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