Re: Ada as a first language

[mockturtle <framefritti@gmail.com>]

On Mar 22, 3:26 am, Chris <c...@internode.on.net> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am a mechanical engineer, and I have become interested in robotics
> embedded systems. I have little experience in this area other that
> plugging in electronic components and clicking run.
>
> I had recently started to learn Java, when I found out about Ada. From
> what I have seen of Ada, I really like the way that the language is
> structured, that is has a proper standard, and it seems like a good
> choice for the types of projects that I have in mind.
>
> I have down loaded GNAT with the GPS IDE, as well as the work bench for
> eclipse (although I haven't had it working yet), and have been trying to
> work my way through the examples.
>
> My concern lies in the smaller community for Ada. As an
> amateur/hobbyist, am I biting off more than I need to?

First of all... welcome aboard!

To be honest, your question is not entirely clear to me
(consider that English is not my native language).  I interpret it
as if you are wondering if Ada is a "gun for mosquitos" when compared
to the needs of an hobbyist, considering also a possibly
limited support due to a smaller amauter community.

Let me tell you my experience.  I am a University researcher and
I program mainly to implement the results of my work and to do
"fast and dirty" work (e.g., shell script or processing of log files).
I discovered Ada few years ago and since then I abandoned other
languages such as C, C++, ...  My opinion is that  Ada is a nice
language for whatever problem you have at hand, from doing DSP
on small processor, to writing very large pieces of software which
will "live" for years.  So, I think (my opinion) that it can be a
very good choice for your applicative context.

Should I mention one important defect of Ada, I would say the
relative loss of introductory documentation, although you can
find enough to start working with the language. [To be honest,
there are few aspects (e.g. streams) that it is difficult to
find explained in good detail, maybe someone can prove me false
(I would be glad to)].