Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

[Sinning Spider]

Which language should an aerospace engineering freshman entering
Purdue this Fall 2003 learn now?  Ada, C or Java?

Re: Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

[Marin David Condic]

Yes. Learn Ada, C & Java. :-) Ada will show you how to do it right. C 
and/or Java are much more common in real world use. C moreso for 
embedded computing and Java moreso for network applications. Ada is 
still in use in aerospace so it is valuable to know - but I'd suggest 
learning it because then you will understand the flaws & weaknesses of C 
and Java.

MDC



Sinning Spider wrote:
> Which language should an aerospace engineering freshman entering
> Purdue this Fall 2003 learn now?  Ada, C or Java?


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Re: Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

[Rod Chapman]

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?

Very difficult to answer!  What languages get taught in CS101
seems to be in a constant state of flux and the subject
of near-religious debate in CS education.  I'd recommend you
keep an open mind and learn as much as you can about as many
languages as you can, particularly focussing on the strengths
and weaknesses of each language with respect to particular
application domains.  In recruiting CS graduates here at Praxis,
I'd be looking for appreciation of the following application
domains, with some fluency in two or three:

Dynamic OO: Java, Smalltalk?
Design-by-Contract: SPARK or Eiffel
Domain specific: MATLAB (seems to be almost ubitquitous now in engineering)
Pure functional: Scheme or Haskell maybe?
Safety Critical: SPARK Ada, MISRA C
Real-Time: Ada95 Ravenscar profile.
Historical: ALGOL68, Pascal, Modula-[123], C etc. etc.

But that's for CS grads...For an aero-eng grad, I probably wouldn't
expect them to know about the functional and historical domains.
Don't wory of that seems alot - you've got 4 years, right?!?

Oh - For techies, I'd also look for at least some knowledge of at
least one modern assembler - many avionics programmes are
going to PowerPC for instance - and knowing your low-level stuff can 
never hurt.  (I'm slightly worried that many university CS programmes
don't seem to teach low-level architecture and assembler
any more at all...)

I will now take cover under my desk... :-)
- Rod

Re: Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

[Jeffrey Carter]

Sinning Spider wrote:
> Which language should an aerospace engineering freshman entering
> Purdue this Fall 2003 learn now?  Ada, C or Java?

Ada can help you learn all kinds of useful software engineering concepts 
you won't find in the other 2, or many other places (Eiffel comes to 
mind). Once you have the S/W engineering concepts you can apply them in 
any language. Concentrate on packages, generics, tasks, and protected 
objects at first. Access types, tagged types, and streams seem to have a 
lot of implementation details that beginners get bogged down in.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"When Roman engineers built a bridge, they had to stand under it
while the first legion marched across. If programmers today
worked under similar ground rules, they might well find
themselves getting much more interested in Ada!"
Robert Dewar

Re: Which language for aerospace engineering freshman?

[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.