Which docs first?

Which docs first?

[Clueless]

Recentely I've been spending alot of time just reading through the LRM and
the Rationale. I'm also planning on going through the GNAT source code(as
per the recommendation found in Aho's Dragon Books).

My question is this...how much time should a novice spend reviewing the
official Ada docs( i.e.  the LRM and the Rationale), and compiler source
code in proportion to the amount of time reading through the tutorials and
text books that are available for newcomers to the language. Books such as
Barnes's "Programming in Ada95" for instance, or the tutorials one finds 
out on the Net? I am assuming that there is nice middle ground somewhere,
where one can become familiar with the guts of the language without
becoming overwhelmed by what may appear on the  surface to be an extremely
complex set of syntax and general language rules.

Any advice?

McDoobie chris@dont.spam.me

Re: Which docs first?

[Marin David Condic]

The ARM and Rationale are really aimed at compiler writers. They're useful,
but not really the best way to learn the language. You're better off working
through someone's text book and/or on-line tutorials first. If you want to
be a compiler writer when you grow up :-) then go right ahead and study the
rest - but its better to get a feel for the language from other sources
first.

See http://www.adapower.org/ for additional resources and a book is
available on line at: http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/

Have fun and be sure to visit C.L.A. with your questions.

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/


"Clueless" <chris@dont.spam.me> wrote in message
news:vnIy7.177125$K6.83721772@news2...
> Recentely I've been spending alot of time just reading through the LRM and
> the Rationale. I'm also planning on going through the GNAT source code(as
> per the recommendation found in Aho's Dragon Books).
>
> My question is this...how much time should a novice spend reviewing the
> official Ada docs( i.e.  the LRM and the Rationale), and compiler source
> code in proportion to the amount of time reading through the tutorials and
> text books that are available for newcomers to the language. Books such as
> Barnes's "Programming in Ada95" for instance, or the tutorials one finds
> out on the Net? I am assuming that there is nice middle ground somewhere,
> where one can become familiar with the guts of the language without
> becoming overwhelmed by what may appear on the  surface to be an extremely
> complex set of syntax and general language rules.
>
> Any advice?
>
> McDoobie chris@dont.spam.me

Re: Which docs first?

[Marc A. Criley]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> The ARM and Rationale are really aimed at compiler writers. They're useful,
> but not really the best way to learn the language. You're better off working
> through someone's text book and/or on-line tutorials first. If you want to
> be a compiler writer when you grow up :-) then go right ahead and study the
> rest - but its better to get a feel for the language from other sources
> first.

For experienced Ada 83 programmers I highly recommend the Ada 95
Rationale as a good introduction and means to get familiar with the new
features and changes.  It's technical, but quite readable.

For those new to the language, though, I'll defer to others for book
recommendations.  <OLDCOOT>When I learned Ada--and it was _Ada_, not
"Ada 83"--we didn't have any fancy schmancy Ada books, we had the LRM. 
And if you couldn't understand the Reference Manual, then you could go
stand in the corner with the other BASIC programmers.</OLDCOOT>

Marc A. Criley
Senior Staff Engineer
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com

Re: Which docs first?

[Marin David Condic]

"Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3BCC17E1.426708E@earthlink.net...
>
> For experienced Ada 83 programmers I highly recommend the Ada 95
> Rationale as a good introduction and means to get familiar with the new
> features and changes.  It's technical, but quite readable.
>
I wouldn't suggest *not* reading it assuming one has the time and technical
background, but I'd think its the harder way to simply learn enough of the
language to get started.


> For those new to the language, though, I'll defer to others for book
> recommendations.  <OLDCOOT>When I learned Ada--and it was _Ada_, not
> "Ada 83"--we didn't have any fancy schmancy Ada books, we had the LRM.
> And if you couldn't understand the Reference Manual, then you could go
> stand in the corner with the other BASIC programmers.</OLDCOOT>
>

....And we didn't even have *compilers* for it like these spoiled kids of
today! We had to hand-translate it into zeros and ones - and sometimes we
didn't even have zeros and had to use "O"'s instead! :-)

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/

Re: Which docs first?

[Gerhard Häring]

On Mon, 15 Oct 2001 21:17:15 GMT, Clueless <chris@dont.spam.me> wrote:
>Recentely I've been spending alot of time just reading through the LRM and
>the Rationale. I'm also planning on going through the GNAT source code(as
>per the recommendation found in Aho's Dragon Books).
>
>My question is this...how much time should a novice spend reviewing the
>official Ada docs( i.e.  the LRM and the Rationale), and compiler source
>code in proportion to the amount of time reading through the tutorials and
>text books that are available for newcomers to the language. Books such as
>Barnes's "Programming in Ada95" for instance, or the tutorials one finds 
>out on the Net?

At the start:

3  %: LRM
97 %: good book (like Barnes')
0  %: reading GNAT sources

When you're more experienced, you will need more official language
references, but at the beginning it's safe to ignore them.

Worked for me for all of the languages I learnt. I stopped counting them
;-)

I never needed to look into compiler sources. Only into interpreter
sources to look why some operations take more time than others.

>I am assuming that there is nice middle ground somewhere, where one can
>become familiar with the guts of the language without becoming
>overwhelmed by what may appear on the  surface to be an extremely
>complex set of syntax and general language rules.

When learning a language, I nowadays tend to read relatively much of a
book, so that I get a grasp of the bigger picture. Only then I start
coding test programs (i. e. I skip hello world and the likes). Formerly,
I wanted to code as soon as possible. But that's personal taste and also
depends on the type of language. I think this helps understanding the
"Why" and not only the "How" earlier.

All IMNSHO, of course.

Gerhard
-- 
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Re: Which docs first?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <slrn9smn8m.9cq.gerhard.nospam@lilith.hqd-internal>, Gerhard
=?iso-8859-1?Q?H=E4ring?= says...
>
>On Mon, 15 Oct 2001 21:17:15 GMT, Clueless <chris@dont.spam.me> wrote:
>>My question is this...how much time should a novice spend reviewing the
>>official Ada docs( i.e.  the LRM and the Rationale), and compiler source
>
>At the start:
>
>3  %: LRM
>97 %: good book (like Barnes')
>0  %: reading GNAT sources

That 3% should all be annexes K and L. Having a glance at the first 2 pages of
Annex A wouldn't hurt either, just to get an idea of what's in there.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: Which docs first?

[Ehud Lamm]

Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:a2Yy7.31304$ev2.37362@www.newsranger.com...
> That 3% should all be annexes K and L. Having a glance at the first 2
pages of
> Annex A wouldn't hurt either, just to get an idea of what's in there.
>

I'd make that A and K, and skip  L for  in the beginning.

Ehud

Re: Which docs first?

[Jeffrey Carter]

I would suggest starting with a book or tutorial. As you begin to
understand concepts, you can look in the ARM for a deeper understanding.
When you start understanding that, you can look in the Rationale if you
wonder why it was done that way. You may need to reference the Ada-83
Rationale as well, since the Rationale mostly confines itself to
differences between Ada 83 and Ada.

-- 
Jeffrey Carter

Re: Which docs first?

[Stephen Leake]

"Clueless" <chris@dont.spam.me> writes:

> Recentely I've been spending alot of time just reading through the LRM and
> the Rationale. I'm also planning on going through the GNAT source code(as
> per the recommendation found in Aho's Dragon Books).
> 
> My question is this...how much time should a novice spend reviewing the
> official Ada docs( i.e.  the LRM and the Rationale), and compiler source
> code in proportion to the amount of time reading through the tutorials and
> text books that are available for newcomers to the language. Books such as
> Barnes's "Programming in Ada95" for instance, or the tutorials one finds 
> out on the Net? I am assuming that there is nice middle ground somewhere,
> where one can become familiar with the guts of the language without
> becoming overwhelmed by what may appear on the  surface to be an extremely
> complex set of syntax and general language rules.
> 
> Any advice?

It depends on what kind of learner you are. I learned Ada by reading
the Ada 83 manual, then writing code in DEC Ada, then reading the Ada
95 manual, then writing code with GNAT, then reading Norm Cohen's
book, then reading parts of the Ada 95 Rationale. 

And I learned more from reading this newsgroup.

Other people's prefered learning style will differ. There is no
"right" way.

It is useful to be aware of your own learning style.

-- 
-- Stephe