Re: 4 beginner's questions on the PL Ada

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com> writes:

> The word 'superficial' there modifies the word 'understanding'.
> Therefore I'm not talking about "coding", but rather about the
> "just look at the code" mentality and the practices it
> encourages.

OK, this seems to carry lots of subtleties. I'm not saying "*just*
look at the code". I say *looking* at the code is the first
step. The second step is understanding it, and this can be done,
for example by integrating it into your project(s), and modifying
it to work seamlessly. (Or just the same: deciding no, that code
won't help, for this and that reason. This can still be helpful:
what if you write it the other way around?)

Especially when you are new to a language, you can't "learn by
doing it", because your toolbox is all but empty. You need to
study what other people wrote. Examples are better, much better,
at this stage, than plowing a reference manual. When you have
achieved some level of fluency, the reference is great to have on
you desk, though.

> Somewhat agreed; I do have several hard-copy Ada books floating
> around.

I found out, there is a book in Swedish (!) on Ada, written for
the general public (or the programming public, perhaps - it is not
an exclusively university publication, at least), written by some
Ph.D. guy. This surprised me a bit, as we seldom have such books
(most Swedish programmers read English very well - too well,
perhaps). The same guy also had some books on more famous PLs
(like C and C++), and even a book on X.

> But your "just the code" attitude dose fit well with "just
> google it."

Again, I've never said *just* the code. I'm saying code is the
bloodstream of any programmer, just as wood to a carpenter, fish
to a fisherman, and the parachute to the sky diver.

To just Google things is the worse thing you can do. You get
inconsistent, fragmented knowledge, and you often get caught up in
discussions of people who don't know what they talk about, so you
litter your brain with it.

Example: I wrote an article on the difference between .Xresources
and .Xdefaults the other day, and did some research. And, the
first Google hit on the issue was a joke, with incorrect
information in all but every paragraph. (But, interestingly, the
second hit was correct.)

> ... what I wrote, which was ultimately about understanding, not
> about some block of code.

I don't see the conflict. On the contrary, I *know* understanding
can come from code.

> ...You've said almost nothing about code vs documentation the
> whole time; you have been talking about text vs GUI though.

Yes, and did you ever meet a guy who exclusively used the CLI,
because this made for precision and flexibility, while at the same
time having a lazy attitude to computers, dealing with superficial
knowledge? No - it doesn't make any sense.

> And how are you ever going to know if the code is bad if all you
> have to compare it with is itself?

After years of programming every day and every night, I don't
*compare*. I am able to assess the material *as it is*.

> ... when you were talking about googling and how it reduces
> attention-spans!

Yes, for the record: to be code-oriented does not imply Googling!

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573