Re: Ada Query...

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <1523f737.24269b2c@usw-ex0102-015.remarq.com>,
  phodgpacker <phodgepackerNOphSPAM@excite.com.invalid> wrote:

> Let just say to all that replied to Matt's post, you are
> dicks. You could have just answered they question, but you
> felt it necessary to jump all over him.

Well we could have just answered the question, but that would
have been unfare to him, just as it is unfare to a student to
do their homework for them.

The critical thing here is not for Matt to learn that what he
wants is a procedure, but rather to learn how to figure that
out for himself.

The analogy of the pilot in the 747 cockpit asking where the
accelerator lives is a very nice one, it captures not only the
lack of knowledge, but also the wrong frame of thinking that
came with the original message.

Trying to write C code in Ada by asking statement by statement
what the Ada equivalent for the C is may result in a sort of
working Ada program if the program is short, but it will not
result in an acceptable Ada program, or in the programmer having
learned anything about Ada.

One must assume that the point of Matt writing anything in Ada
is to learn how Ada works (one certainly can assume that he is
not part of some programming team writing nuclear reactor
codes). Given that, it is really a good discipline not to take
the easy way out and just answer the question in the small, but
rather to use the opportunity to help teach.

Remember that Matt's objective here is not to write a "function
that does not return a value", but rather to learn how to write
Ada.


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