Re: Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

[nma124@hotmail.com (steve_H)]

spinningspider@3233.com (Sinning Spider) wrote in message news:<474f5457.0305310249.6163e00@posting.google.com>...
> Which language should an aerospace engineering freshman entering
> Purdue this Fall 2003 learn now?  Ada, C or Java?

Unfortunately, even though Ada is the better language, you better learn
Matlab for an engineering education.  Knowing matlab will help you do
all your homework's and projects at school much faster and you will get
better grades.

The reason why Ada is not as good as matlab for an engineering student, is:

1. Lack of build-in numerical and engineering libraries (compared with 
matlab which comes with every engineering function you ever wanted at 
your fingertip). 

2. Lack of build-in support for graphics and function plotting, which is 
for an engineer is the bread and butter of their work. Matlab again makes
this so easy. If you want to do plotting in Ada, what will you use? you
have to go search the net for some graphics libraries and deal with
installing it and all that, then your professor when he/she tries to run
your project to grade it, will find they do not have these installed on
their PC and other such problems. This problem also affects C and C++.

So, as a language, Ada is much better than Matlab the language. But
Matlab will be the better choice to learn for an engineering student. 

Java, because at least it has build-in graphics, will be less of a pain
than Ada for the purpose of using for simulation and such, which you will 
be doing allot of in aerospace. But again, Matlab will be the better choice
here too.

Now, if you are asking which language will you use for a real life aerpospace
application, then Ada ofcourse is the better choice here.

btw, Have you looked at MAPLE as well? Maple is an excellent choice for
an engineering student as well.