Re: Looking for good Ada95 book

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <dewar.846952540@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>The result in my class is that some people use the Feldman style and
>some use the more standard style that I (and most other Ada programmers)
>use.

So, this is fine.
>
>I understand, but find unconvincing, Mike's arguments for this nonstandard
>style (in which keywords are capitalized).

Right - I borrowed it from a long line of Pascal-in-CS1 authors. I'm
really getting bored with fighting this battle repeatedly over something 
very small. The Pascal community went to the upper-case style because
it was a reasonable replacement for bold-facing, in teaching beginners.
>
>Obviously tastes vary, but for me this disadvantage is sufficient to 
>look at competitive text books that follow a more standard style. This
>is obviously a question on which opinions will differ, but for me variation
>in lexical style is very annoying, and it is a great advantage if a language
>has a pretty standard style, either enforced by the language (COBOL), or
>by generally accepted convention (C).

So use a different book... tastes vary.

>With Ada 95, we have something approaching a real consensus on style (use
>lower case for keywords and Capitalized_Identifiers_With_Underscores). I
>think this consensus is valuable for the community, and I think it is
>damaging for a text book in effect to wage a rear guard action against
>this consensus.

Rear-guard action? Gimmea break! Damaging to what? To whom? C'mon -
the RM leaves it up to individuals to set a lexical style. Why do you
feel the urge to be dictatorial? 

It's NOT a rear-guard action, merely a pedagogical technique. When I'm
writing for beginners, I use the capitalized style; when I'm not, I don;t.
Jeez - not everything has to be so _political_. I'm not opposed to
the "standard" style; I just bought in to teaching beginners using a
style adopted by hundreds of Pascal teachers.
>
>Mike feels that UPPER case keywords are superior from a pedagogical point
>of view. Even if this were true (I don't accept this), it is not enough
>to make it acceptable to undermine consensus style issues. Certainly
>I don't see people seriously arguing this as an issue in teaching C
>(though of cours there are many other legitimate issues when it comes
>to teaching C as a first language).

I beg your pardon - there are lots of style in writing C identifiers.
Some use lower case, others mixed case. 

C _requires_ reserved words to be in lower case, so everyone does it. 
Ada requires nothing of the kind.

You are right - there are lots of issues, so why do you persist in
fighting this battle? Maybe I'll change it in the next edition (Cohen
changed his...), maybe not. I find the students like it.

>SO, horrible may be too far for Mike, but I stand by it!

Robert, you're making a VERY big deal over something VERY small. 
Any student (beyond the first year) incapable of switching the case
of his reserved words to suit his teacher or manager had better get
out of CS.

If the lexical style is really sufficient reason to adopt or reject a
text, I'd say you're not reading for content...

Mike Feldman