From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,7ecb950fc3673a68 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: Ada Query... Date: 2000/03/27 Message-ID: <8bortn$73i$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 603171640 References: <8bkv48$dcm$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <1523f737.24269b2c@usw-ex0102-015.remarq.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x39.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Mar 27 23:47:07 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 2000-03-27T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <1523f737.24269b2c@usw-ex0102-015.remarq.com>, phodgpacker 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. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.