Re: How Would a Hobbyist Learn Ada?

[Adrian Hoe <abyhoe@gmail.com>]

On May 24, 12:53 pm, Ankur Sethi <get.me.an...@gmail.com> wrote:
> n00b question? Probably. Can I find my answer somewhere else? Nope. Do
> I have any other place to turn to? Definitely not.
>
> I'm a hobbyist programmer just out of high school. I've been dabbling
> in C and Python for a while now, and would probably take up CS in
> college (just a few months from now).
>
> I was attracted to Ada because it was :
> 1. Sanely Object Oriented - It doesn't force OO like Java and C#.
> 2. Compiled - I *want* to do manual memory management so that I can at
> least understand what automatic garbage collection means to me. I've
> been living comfortably with Python for too long.
> 3. Uniform Syntax - I find C++ syntax weird. C was okay, though.
>
> I'm sure there are other benefits, but I really don't understand what
> they mean to me (yet).
>
> So, what would an amateur, cash deprived programmer like me do to
> learn Ada? There are web tutorials, for for the 95 standard. There's a
> Wikibook, but I've found it incomplete at several places and there are
> a lot of concepts I can't grasp. There's the reference document, but I
> can't make head or tail of it.
>
> A big, warm hearted "thank you" , in advance, to anybody who helps :)
>
> PS : Once I learn this language, I *swear* I'm writing my own
> tutorials so other hobbyists can benefit.


Welcome on board!

I learned Apple Basic, Pascal, FORTRAN and then C/C++ and with some
GUI languages such as Paradox before I got into Ada. At that time
(around 1995), the Ada resources on the Internet was scarce. I managed
to get a book by Jogn G. Barnes, "Programming in Ada" and later
Michael Feldman's 2 books, "Software Construction and Data Structures
with Ada95" and "Ada95 - Problem Solving and Program Design". Then I
managed to find John's 2nd book "Programming in Ada95". I would say
John's books are Ada's bible, apart the ARM.

You can find the books I have here: http://adrianhoe.com/adrianhoe/projects/ada/

Alternately, WikiBook is another good learning resource for Ada.

Start using Ada in whatever project you have. May it easy or
difficult. You will learn better when you bump into problems.

Enjoy Ada.
--
Adrian Hoe
http://adrianhoe.com/adrianhoe/