Re: Looking for good Ada95 book

[do_while@lo-pan.ridgecrest.ca.us (Do-While Jones)]

Rich makes the valid point:

>
>2) And, reserved words do need to stand out in CS1. Much of the course
>concerns learning the meanings of these words, which also act as roadmaps
>to beginners for understanding code - because much of CS1 concerns algorithms
>embodied in (nested) control structures. As students progress, abstractions
>start to play a larger role, and the importance of reserved words diminishes,
>and so can their prominence.
>
>

That is certainly true from a student/instructor point of view.  But I say, 
"Different strokes for different folks."  As a maintainer of software, I 
would rather have the reserved words fade into obscurity.  That is, I prefer

procedure VIRUS is
begin
  DESTROY_THE_DISK;
end VIRUS;

to 

PROCEDURE virus IS
BEGIN
  destroy_the_disk;
END;

From my point of view, reserved words are just noise that must be removed 
to obtain the information.  When reserved words are emphasized I must 
expend more effort to ignore them.

One of the wonderful things about Ada is that she doesn't put programmers 
in a style straitjacket.  You can use whatever style emphasizes the 
things that are important to you.

Do-While Jones





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