Re: Books on 95 (fwd)

[Dave <davedave@io.com>]

Apparently, John Barnes and a few others, were a little confused about 
some comments I recently made concerning his book "Programming in 
Ada95".  What follows is part of my reply to Barnes -- which should clear up 
everything.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
On Tue, 7 May 1996, John Barnes wrote:
> > 
> > Barnes was a major contributor to the original version of Ada.  Unlike his 
> > previous books, this one is organized in more of a tutorial fashion and less
> > of a handbook fashion.  
> 
> Why do you feel the organization is different? I had to do some reorganization
> because of the changes of impact of certain features. And things are more
> interwoven in 95. But generally I felt that it was still much the same.
> I had to move access types much earlier because of needing them for OO. But 
> maybe it is the fact that I felt the need to put in a later chapter
> on OO techniques which pulls things together which gives you that impression.
> And of course I expanded the opening chapter 2 into three chapters (but that
> was just something I meant to do when I wrote the original in 1982 but ran out
> of energy).
> 
> Do you think the book is not so good as a consequence? There will always
> be another edition one day.

Actually, John, I feel that the new book is much much better than the old
one.  Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the old edition here in my
office, so I cannot give you any specifics.  However, the fact that
"things are more interwoven in 95" makes it much more useful for teaching
Ada.  I realize that these changes were not that significant from the
writer's viewpoint; however, from the reader's viewpoint they can be very
significant.  This is especially true if someone is learning Ada95 for the
first time.  In fact, I feel that your book is the best book for teaching
an experienced programmer Ada95. 

I do agree that the new book contains all of the information which was in
the old book, so it still does make an excellent handbook. 

<cut>

Keep up the good work!

-- Dave Jones
davedave@io.com