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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9ae4ebee627c2c3,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Dave Subject: Re: Books on 95 (fwd) Date: 1996/05/07 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 153508854 organization: Illuminati Online content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-05-07T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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. Keep up the good work! -- Dave Jones davedave@io.com