Re: Ada, "Software Fantasyland," and Quick Courses

[rjh@cs.purdue.EDU (Bob Hathaway)]

>In the Spring '88 and Fall '88 semesters, I taught an "Ada
>Programming Language" course at a small college.  This was a rather

Some good schools have a "Software Engineering with Ada" course or
use Ada in their "Software Engineering" curriculum.  Teaching a simple
Ada programming course seems to be the problem.

>"promoted" from computer operations.  Not only were many unfamiliar
>with high-level languages, I had to justify structured programming!
>Strong typing was something to be defeated.  (Was I naive for making
>assumptions about their background?)

A "Software Engineering" in the course title would have alerted them modern
principles were being taught.

>
>ADA IS NOT "JUST ANOTHER LANGUAGE."
>
>Many of the features of Ada make no sense to a programmer who is
>unaware of, and not motivated toward the concepts of structured
>programming, modularity, information hiding, object-oriented design,
>....  I could go on and on.  
>

But many programmers are aware of all of this, I for one before learning
Ada.  How long before my first Ada program worked (with generics, Adts,
dynamic arrays, arbitrary length strings, etc.)  A few hours.  

I would change the above quotation to read:
ADA is an incremental improvement in programming languages encompassing
modern software engineering principles.

>software engineering principles" for 7 years, it took two more years
>of working full-time on an Ada project to develop a minimal
>competence in the language---to learn "how to do it the Ada way."

It depends on your background.  After a few years of C and Modula
programming and some independent reading on Ada, programming in
Ada was an incredible delight from the start: greater power than C
with the structure of Modula.  I could see giving a one semester 
"Software Engineering With Ada" course by simply using some good
references (Booch, Ada Letters, LRM) and by having a few experts
available.

>1.  How much re-educating of DoD software enginners is necessary
>    BEFORE teaching Ada?  In other words, should we be teaching
>    software engineering fundamentals first?  What's the most
>    effective way to do this?

I suggest a short time with "Software Engineering with Ada" by Grady Booch
is sufficient, possibly along with "Software Components With Ada" and the
LRM.

>2.  How long does it take to properly re-educate a generic software
>    engineer into an Ada developer?  Can the cost be recovered?

This should depend on their previous experience and background.

>3.  Where does Ada fit into the college curriculum?  How can we
>    educate students in good software engineering, not just give them
>    "Ada" on their resumes?

Simple, offer a "Software Engineering with Ada" course like several 
universities.  I think Ada is currently by far the best language
for software engineering for both teaching and practice.

>
>4.  What qualifications (read "experience working on Ada projects")
>    should be required for those teaching Ada?
>

I know of one qualification which may be underemphasized: a genuine desire
to program in state of the art languages using state of the art methodologies.
I'm sure everyone on all the Ada committes could pass this test with ease...

>
>5.  Can some of these efforts lead to an expansion of the Ada base
>    beyond DoD and DoD contractors into other industries?

I certainly hope so.  Since Ada offers the most modern programming constructs
and methodology I see little reason to use anything else.  With
conferences discussing future enhancements I expect the situation to stay
that way, since other groups (such as the Modula-3 group) will keep the
leading edge in state of the art programming language design moving.

Bob Hathaway
rjh@purdue.edu