From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-04 06:10:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stueberl.de!peer1.news.newnet.co.uk!mephistopheles.news.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/10.1.1.2418 Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died) From: Bill Findlay Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: References: <9fa75d42.0305011727.5eae0222@posting.google.com> <4F03C83A9C6A478F.688C62D70A2EADA3.068FE6EB5E241C3B@lp.airnews.net> <9fa75d42.0305020507.6d071f2b@posting.google.com> <34Y+3LACEus+EwF5@nildram.co.uk> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 14:09:11 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 80.195.75.181 X-Complaints-To: abuse@blueyonder.co.uk X-Trace: news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk 1052053809 80.195.75.181 (Sun, 04 May 2003 13:10:09 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 13:10:09 GMT Organization: blueyonder (post doesn't reflect views of blueyonder) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:36931 Date: 2003-05-04T14:09:11+01:00 List-Id: On 2/5/03 22:20, in article 34Y+3LACEus+EwF5@nildram.co.uk, "Tom Welsh" wrote: > > That is a tradeoff that each language designer has to make. In the case > of Ada, it was desirable to include a large set of features because one > of the language's main objectives was to support programming in the > large, including realtime and concurrent programmming. Then there is the > compilation system... > What you don't know about Ada does not hurt you, so its absolute size is pretty irrelevant to a teaching argument. Once you get past the basics, Ada's strong support for OOP, programming in the large, concurrent programming, and consistency-enforcing compilation are all major assets of Ada as a teaching language. > Pascal, for example, is much smaller and tidier. That makes it more > suitable as a first language for students to learn - which was one of > its design goals. On the other hand, its very simplicity has sometimes > made unextended Pascal inappropriate for production systems. Pascal is certainly smaller than Ada, but it is NOT tidier. Both the syntax and the semantics of Ada are much more consistent, and therefore easier to learn. I was formerly at a university that has been teaching 400-500 novices a year in Ada 95 since 1997. More students become able to write working code with confidence, sooner, and more consistently, than they ever did with Pascal (the previous teaching language). The staff teaching those courses have successful beaten off an attempt to replace Ada 95 with Java, and are set to go on with Ada for another 5 years. -- Bill-Findlay chez blue-yonder.co.uk ("-" => "")