Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

["Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com>]

The distinction is the audience that you are targeting.  When one wants to
learn to program, one usually gets a book or a college education.  In either
case, a book is needed.  In order the make the market for hobbyist Ada
larger, we need the newcomers to have a positive experience with it.  A
cheap intro programming text targets the audience of potential hobbyists.
Boxed compilers target people who already know how to program.  I would
guess that this market would be smaller.  With a larger hobby lobby that has
been introduced to GNAT, a box edition of GNAT tailored to specific
platforms might become more feasible.

As I mentioned above the other area that should be targeted more is the
universities.  In order to do so, professors must be persuaded that the
course language that they want to switch to should be Ada instead of Java.
This isn't by any means easy.  Perhaps open content text books that use Ada
would help in that area because it would be impossible for the books to go
out of print since universities could simply use there own printing services
to serve their own needs (students would get cheaper books so they should be
happy in that respect ;).

The point I am trying to make is that I think that we, the Ada advocates
(hobbyists), should make a play for the youths' minds and mold them to favor
Ada.  I don't think a simple boxed compiler will do this since the presence
of boxed compilers is most likely just a symptom of a popular language.

Of course this still leaves us with the issue of how to get a Ada compiler
for Windows CE.  I personally would find such a port wonderful because quite
a bit of research projects at MSU use Windows CE, and it would make an
argument much easier if I could say "Hey look its free/cheap and it has
excellent support for multi-tasking, data structures, and you don't have to
constantly mess with pointers"  ;)  Perhaps if our hobby lobby is big
enough, there exist someone in our lobby that will make the port.

With reguards, to the title of the book, I think we should consult a
marketting expert of good quality;  this person would be best suited to name
the product for maxium effect at catching the impulse buyer.  We would just
need to hook them early so we get to fill their minds first.  I like your
suggestion for the title of the book; it makes me smile.

-Chad R. Meiners


"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:9p2ca0$iq5$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw. A book that came with
a
> disk that included Gnat & AdaGIDE and gdb would *be* a compiler kit.
You're
> selling a book that happens to include software or your selling software
> that happens to include a book - the only difference might be the
particular
> retail outlet you'd put it in.
>
> In either case, I'd think it was a *good* thing. I'm just not sure it
would
> be a *profitable* thing. :-)
>
> BTW, the book title should be "Programming For Smart People Because All
The
> Dummies Are Using C++" :-)
>
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
>
>