From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.224.137.68 with SMTP id v4mr2650322qat.1.1378296250995; Wed, 04 Sep 2013 05:04:10 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.49.58.225 with SMTP id u1mr4623qeq.21.1378296250981; Wed, 04 Sep 2013 05:04:10 -0700 (PDT) Path: border1.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border4.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!j7no251181qai.0!news-out.google.com!p7ni567qas.0!nntp.google.com!j7no251178qai.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 05:04:10 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <9ec51e40-081f-4ec7-b17f-7c73dbdcd10a@googlegroups.com> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=158.110.27.77; posting-account=9fwclgkAAAD6oQ5usUYhee1l39geVY99 NNTP-Posting-Host: 158.110.27.77 References: <9ec51e40-081f-4ec7-b17f-7c73dbdcd10a@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <5f4a58a6-2a0e-4d51-b8ab-f1024ac7ab9b@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: How (or Where?) to get started on Ada? (Properly) From: mockturtle Injection-Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 12:04:10 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Original-Bytes: 4357 Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:183283 Date: 2013-09-04T05:04:10-07:00 List-Id: Since you have some experience with Java, maybe you could give a look to "Ada for the C++ or Java Developer" available at http://www.adacore.com/uploads_gems/Ada_for_the_C++_or_Java_Developer.pd= f On Wednesday, September 4, 2013 11:14:55 AM UTC+2, e.s.h...@gmail.com wrote= : > Some general details on my situation (that may be useful or not for the q= uestion; feel free to skip down to the "TL;DR" marker if you don't want to = read them): >=20 >=20 >=20 > As a programmer that has spent most of his time in managed environments s= o far (Java mostly, with some PHP and Python here and there), I have been t= rying to get more into "native code" recently, in order to be able to contr= ol things like memory layout and get deterministic resource usage (and thus= deterministic run time performance).=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > Initially I started looking at C/C++, but soon realized that the intricat= e semantics of C++ were a deal-breaker (and not necessary for what I was lo= oking for anyways) and that C lacked too many libraries (hash tables, file = systems, threading, etc.) to be useful for one-man-projects these days (yes= there's things like APR or GLib but those are quite a bit of a hassle).=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > Looking at the other options available currently, Ada seemed like the bes= t one (still actively maintained; competitive compiler; windows/linux-porta= bility; .. at times I wonder if we'd be seeing thing like Rust or Go if Ada= didn't still have its Pascal syntax...) >=20 >=20 >=20 > So here I am, looking into learning Ada.. I have dabbled in it (as well a= s Turbo Pascal) at various points in time for school/university courses, bu= t those have been very shallow experiences. >=20 >=20 >=20 > TL;DR: >=20 > What I am struggling the most when learning new languages is knowing virt= ually nothing about what the syntax actually does. I have tried some online= tutorials that manage to walk me through the compilation process and then = slowly introduce new languages pieces through example programs, but (for me= at least) that has been a rather frustrating experience, considering that = I'm essentially just copy-pasting code (and having to ignore irrelevant bit= s in the code that are not relevant yet, but still necessary for it to run)= .. >=20 >=20 >=20 > What I'm looking for is a text that starts from the other way, i.e. expla= ins the language blocks, the data/object model, etc. first, and only after = that goes on to provide full examples of working code. I guess this is some= thing I'll only be able to find in a book. >=20 >=20 >=20 > I did look on Amazon about available books, but all of them seem fairly d= ated. "Programming in Ada 2005" by John Barnes did look interesting judging= by the reviews, yet I'm not sure of how helpful it will be in covering all= details that are relevant to writing useful software these days (things li= ke utf8, interfacing with C, etc.). >=20 >=20 >=20 > Do you have any recommendations for me?