Re: Ada for C programmers

[jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <E2qu5I.LJr@nonexistent.com> Rich Maggio <maggior@world2u.com> writes:

> I just want to toss something out there to see what some of you
> think about this.  When C++ became "all the rage", there came many
> books targeted to the C programmer that was moving to C++ and OO
> thinking.  Wouldn't one for Ada be useful?

Absolutely.  Go to the Ada home page: www.adahome.com.  Under the
"floors" section, second column, go to "From C/C++ to Ada".  This
material (which is quite good as it is) is being turned into a book to
be published early next year, if I recall correctly.  Perhaps Simon
Johnston, the author, will give you an update.


> I am not saying that C better than Ada or anything, but the fact of
> the matter is that there are LOTS of seasoned C programmers out
> there.  If the idea is to try to "convert" as many C programmers
> over to Ada as possible, wouldn't such a guide/book be valuable to
> the "Ada cause"?  Is there such a book?  Has anyone contemplated
> putting such a book/document together?

See above.

> Any thoughts?

I think you are spot on and the book version of the above referenced
HTML stuff will be a great addition.


> As a side note - I am amazed by one thing with Ada: the fact that
> this stuff has been around since the early 80's.  At work, we use C
> and C++, and my group is starting to make use of the STL (Standard
> Template Library).  Everyone talks about how cool this is and how
> wonderful it is.  I took a look at the book and was amazed to see
> that I was not looking at anything foreign to me - this was the same
> sort of thing I was doing in my class.  And the language I was using
> supported this sort of thing (generics) back in the early 80's!  So,
> this being the case, I can say that, even though I will not use Ada
> professionally (at least at my current job), it was a very
> worthwhile language for me to learn.

Absolutely.  Further, in terms of implementation aspects, you will
find that the C++ compilers out there trying to do something with
templates, exceptions, namspaces, etc. are about where Ada compilers
were ten years ago.  Technologically they are way behind.  At work,
you could be using a language and supporting tools that do all that
plus tasking, hierarchical libraries, etc. - and with more robustness.

/Jon

-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
Belmont, MA 02178
617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com