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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4871bb700d475964 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-06-07 07:59:37 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Ted Dennison References: <9flodm$6jb$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B1E7320.5E21BB4F@lmtas.lmco.com> <3B1EAAB4.5C86F53D@lmtas.lmco.com> Subject: Re: an interested business-oriented programmer Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: When contacting newsranger.com regarding abuse please X-Abuse-Info: forward the entire news article including headers or X-Abuse-Info: else we will not be able to process your request X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 10:58:52 EDT Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 14:58:52 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8324 Date: 2001-06-07T14:58:52+00:00 List-Id: In article <3B1EAAB4.5C86F53D@lmtas.lmco.com>, Gary Scott says... >Obviously. What we're talking about is expanding Ada's market. I too >would prefer that extensions be kept to a minimum. I'm not familiar >enough with Ada to know that extensions would be required simply to >access the Win32 C-based API (I hadn't thought so). Those are the only >extensions that I'm aware of that MIGHT be required for some other >languages (at least until the next standard revision). Gnat manages to do it with just "stdcall" as an interface convention, which is allowed by the RM. Gnat has lots of other (allowed) extensions, but to my knowledge that's the only one that is required to deal with the Win32 API. Really nothing outside the LRM is *required*. However, the larger mass-market compiler vendors prefer to tie their customers in with proprietary language extensions and GUI interfaces that do everything for you so you don't have to learn how its done yourself. >If you want to get STUDENTS trained in Ada, then you've got to make it >easy for them. They're NOT going to accept a basic command line tool >set environment to any great extent (sure a few 'geeks' will). After my recent stint as a graduate student dealing with undergrads, my fear is that you are absolutely right here. The students I dealt with were totally lost without VisualStudio, even the sharper ones. Still, I'd think you are doing students a great disservice if they never learn how to use a compiler from the command-line. Sure, the high-level stuff is pretty, and can automate some simple tasks. But they should't graduate thinking that everything under their GUI is magic. They shouldn't be afraid of having to learn to use different tools. I find it amusing that you seem to be using "geeks" above as a synonym for "people who really know what they are doing". That's fine, as it goes ("geeks" is certainly shorter). But shouldn't we be teaching students to really know what they are doing? If not, what good is the degree? (I'm sorry, this isn't your issue. Its a separate one. I'll shut up about it now.) Another often-neglected fact it that Emacs actually serves quite well as an IDE for Gnat. The only thing that's kind of a pain is adding directories to the project search path (there's good support for it, but no "browse" or filename completion to help with the task). To top it off, Emacs can do tons of things that most other editors can't. Most other Windows Ada compilers also have some kind of IDE (usually a bit more graphical than emacs, but also less powerful). Perhaps there aren't any free VisualStudio clones out there that come with an Ada compiler. But then VisualStudio itself isn't free either, is it? --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com