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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,fef3ad775ef4b0b7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!wns14feed!worldnet.att.net!attbi_s22.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: "Jeffrey R. Carter" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Windows/20080914) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada for 1st year students References: <60e0c5f0-1e17-4add-b21e-b1ef622d5233@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com> <31b1da2d-1429-4fec-8b9f-161c8c96aaaa@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com> <48fef1b6$0$14060$9b4e6d93@newsspool3.arcor-online.net> In-Reply-To: <48fef1b6$0$14060$9b4e6d93@newsspool3.arcor-online.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.201.97.213 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mchsi.com X-Trace: attbi_s22 1224698550 12.201.97.213 (Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:02:30 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:02:30 GMT Organization: AT&T ASP.att.net Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:02:31 GMT Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2464 Date: 2008-10-22T18:02:31+00:00 List-Id: Georg Bauhaus wrote: > Of course, Windows PC OS is the culprit, extending its technical > lead into Ada programming tools! Let's see what an "It Just Works" > Scottish computer has to say: Ada allows such identifiers, but that doesn't mean they're accepted by the OS or tools that run on it. One could argue that, once again, Ada is ahead of its time. Just because Ada allows such identifiers doesn't mean one should use them. Certainly if they prevent the compilation of the unit and one cannot find an OS and tools that change that, one should not use them. I would argue that one should not use such identifiers, even if the the language, tools, and OS work perfectly with them. Ada reserved words (with the lamentable exception of "elsif") are English words, and the intention is that, with properly chosen identifiers, Ada source code reads (sorta/kinda) like English text, which can be a big help in understanding the code. Using non-English identifiers negates this, and therefore should be avoided. if Chooidooigoo then is gobbledygook whether you speak both languages or not. I'd suggest creating Portu-Ada, which uses Portuguese equivalents of the reserved words. A preprocessor translates the reserved words into English, and mangles identifiers to eliminate characters that interfere with compilation. The resulting generated Ada is not intended for human consumption, and is discarded once it is no longer needed. This should make programming more accessible to Portuguese beginning students than using straight Ada with its English reserved words. Writing the preprocessor in Portu-Ada might be a suitable project for the students, and would help expose them to straight Ada (and the limitations of the tools and OS). Just Rumpelstiltskin's 2 cent's worth. -- Jeff Carter "People called Romanes, they go the house?" Monty Python's Life of Brian 79