Re: Ada Book

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <3ggitn$dvm@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

  > (All you folks out there in Ada-land: Honk if you have a copy of the 
  > Rationale on your shelf.)

   Honk, Honk, Honk, Honk!

   Actually there was a Rationale printed in June 1979 by SIGPLAN with
the Preliminary Ada RM, a version in January 1984 that did not get
wide distribution (my copy is labeled draft for editorial review), and
the final version found on the AJPO machine.  Yes, it would have been
nice if the final version could have appeared sooner, but the earlier
draft is a very nice tutorial.  (The fourth honk is to cover the 9X
Rationale ;-)

 > It is also the case that the Rationale cannot be read in isolation from
 > the LRM, except to get the "flavor" of the language. It is far too
 > incomplete to serve as an authoritative _text_, which is what K&R was.

   Not really.  The original 1979 Rationale did not stand well alone,
but the 1983 version certainly did.  It is not a reference manual and
not intended as one.  I prefer to compare it to Jensen and Wirth,
where a User Manual is combined with a language reference.  Use the
Rationale (User Manual) to learn the language and the Reference Manual
(Report) to look up the answers to questions.


--

					Robert I. Eachus

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