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From: WhiteR@CRPL.Cedar-Rapids.lib.IA.US (Robert S. White)
Subject: Re: Why Ada for learning Data Structures (was: What good is Ada ???)
Date: 1997/01/04
Message-ID: <5amqjr$d5o@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu>#1/1
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references: <32cf95b5.9781483@netnews2.worldnet.att.net>
 <1997Jan4.140137.1@eisner> <5amins$nts@nuhou.aloha.net>
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newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-01-04T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <5amins$nts@nuhou.aloha.net>, jfarr@aloha.net says...

...snip...

>simply, "Why learn Ada rather than Java?"  I'm kind of interested in that 
>myself.  But you didn't answer the question; you just reacted to a perceived 

...snip...

  Ada was designed to do a very good job of modeling data structures - by 
very capable people that had their work reviewed by acknowledged experts in
the field.  It has proven itself in practice and has undergone one major 
refinement (minor cleanups and major OO features added) after its first 12 
years of use.

  IMHO Java is a cleaned up C++ and has yet to really prove itself for broad 
based real world applications (beyond web based Internet applications).  I do
not think of Java as particularly strong in doing data structures that do a 
very clean mapping to actual hardware.  Pascal was used for years as a data
structures language.  Finally Ada is now being used for this purpose.  There is 
no reason for schools to rush to Java for this subject yet.  Yes it is fun to 
try out the latest fad language.  Download the Java SDK from Sun (better yet
get the CD-ROM included in Java texts) and learn this latest language.  But I 
think that it is very reasonable for schools to use a proven and respected 
language for teaching data structures as a concept/subject/tool.  Many/(most?) 
software solutions need this power to do an abstract model of real world items 
to implement a clean solution.

_______________________________________________________________________
Robert S. White                    -- an embedded sys software engineer
WhiteR@CRPL.Cedar-Rapids.lib.IA.US --long/cheap alternate I-net address