Re: Looking for a good Ada 95 book

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

In article <dewar.848712351@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Mike says

[snip]

>So, it is not surprising that Mike doesn't see this as a big deal. He
>notes that people tend to copy what they see at first, and this is why
>I would like them to see something more standard.

Sure they tend to copy what they see first, then they mature and start
developing their own styles. There's nothing wrong with that - it teaches
then to _think_ about developing a style (and NOT just lexical!) that is
courteous to the reader.

I am not training coders; I am educating college students. It is far more
important for them to 

- learn the fundamentals

- learn to _think_

- learn to express themselves articulately and clearly in both natural
  language and programming language

- learn to be ready for an industry in constant change and to view
  each new fad and "religion" with openmindedness and healthy skepticism, 
  not knee-jerk acceptance or rejection

That's why I'm dismayed that, of all the important educational
principles we could discuss here, we are wasting so much bandwidth on 
whether the keywords are uppercase or lowercase, for Heaven's sake!

It's a simple pedagogical device, not Holy Writ. It helps students
through their first year; if they are too stubborn to go with the flow
and change lexical style if a prof or a supervisor requires it, they
are definitely in the wrong major. Sheesh.

>By the way, I agree with others who like the *content* of Mike's book, but
>there are some other very good books appearing, and, as I said earlier,
>other things being equal, I would choose a book using standard style.

There are indeed a number of good books appearing; I welcome the
competition and have always subscribed to the notion that a rising
tide raises all ships. The more good books, the more schools doing Ada,
the more incentive for authors and publishers to revise books, and so
it goes, with each new book leapfrogging the older ones.

>Perhaps I won't find one, perhaps I will!

Naturally! Ice cream comes in lots of flavors, too.

Maybe our friends in industry don't realize the extent to which the 
"customer" for university textbooks is _teachers_, not students. The 
prof gets a free examination copy from the publisher, then adopts a 
text for the course. It's the students who get to _buy_ the books.:-)

I'm bowing out of this discussion of lexical stuff; I'll be happy
to discuss stuff that matters more!

Mike Feldman