Re: Online conceptual/tutorial material for Ada, was: Re: specification file ads problem

[Peter Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>]

On 2014-10-06 18:30, Simon Clubley wrote:

>> Would there possibly be some way of introducing Ada's user defined
>> scalar types earlier?  This would give credit to McCormick's most
>> prominent finding, namely that use of Ada's user defined scalars
>> is a real, non-marketing boost in productivity. In particular, this
>> feature of the Ada language has been found to boost newcomers' results.
>>
> 
> And _that's_ the same reservation I have.
> 
> Ada style user defined datatypes need to be much closer to the start
> of the document. However, I also understand the need not to overwhelm
> the reader with new things.
> 
> How about early examples which show just _one_ of the really simple
> types J-P Rosen mentions and uses (say) Integer for the rest of the
> example ?

Thanks for the feedback on my tutorial. I do agree that talking about
user defined scalar types is important and moving it up makes sense.
I'll definitely look into doing that when I make my updates. That might
be sooner rather than later as I'm teaching Ada in a course at Vermont
Technical College next semester and it might be nice to point the
students to my tutorial as one (of several) resources.

Peter