Re: Free/Cheap Ada compilers

Re: Free/Cheap Ada compilers

[Richard Pattis]

The following is an excerpt from a comp.lang.misc post by Barry Shein (in
which he analyzes C, FORTRAN, Pascal, Ada, Scheme, and C++ for use in
teaching).  Whether this post is accurate or not, I think it clearly states
common perceptions about Ada.

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4. ADA - Few compilers, mostly too expensive for academics to ever
own, few books oriented towards CS, very demanding on the computing
resources (usually precipitating battles between the people who teach
and those who run the computers as the intro class makes the system
unusable), oh well.

DOD et al blew it with ADA by not making ADA environments available
(thru grants etc) to educators. Right now it's mostly non-existent in
academia, and the few faculty I know who insisted on teaching with ADA
had to be heroes with raising money to support their courses.

So its suitability as a teaching language is mostly moot, you don't
own it, and you can't afford it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rich

Re: Free/Cheap Ada compilers

[George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University]

In article <15585@june.cs.washington.edu>, pattis@cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) writes:
> The following is an excerpt from a comp.lang.misc post by Barry Shein (in
> which he analyzes C, FORTRAN, Pascal, Ada, Scheme, and C++ for use in
> teaching).  Whether this post is accurate or not, I think it clearly states
> common perceptions about Ada.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 4. ADA - Few compilers, mostly too expensive for academics to ever
> own, few books oriented towards CS, very demanding on the computing
> resources (usually precipitating battles between the people who teach
> and those who run the computers as the intro class makes the system
> unusable), oh well.
> 
> DOD et al blew it with ADA by not making ADA environments available
> (thru grants etc) to educators. Right now it's mostly non-existent in
> academia, and the few faculty I know who insisted on teaching with ADA
> had to be heroes with raising money to support their courses.
> 
> So its suitability as a teaching language is mostly moot, you don't
> own it, and you can't afford it.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Rich
This is sad - and apparently written from the viewpoint of total ignorance. 
Rich, if did not post a follup, I will.  Maybe I will anyway.  
 
And since when did the American Dental Association have a compiler?

I will not post my fustration on here....

George

-- George C. Harrison                              -----------------------
----- Professor of Computer Science                -----------------------
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