I do not have time to follow this thread, but the quoted post made me say to an outsider earlier than I was going to that trying to install an Ada compiler would be a good idea. An excerpt of a report of how this was not accomplished is quoted at the end of this post. On Sun, 13 Jun 2010, zeta_no sent: |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On May 24, 6:45 pm, Ludovic Brenta wrote: | | | |> Which tutorials specifically did you use and which ones were bad?  How | |> would you suggest improving them? | |> | |> Also, do you actually _learn_ anything in tutorials?  I mean, do you | |> learn the underlying concepts, the basic knowledge that empowers you, or| |> do you only skim the surface of things and remain dependent on "experts"| |> to guide you? | | | |I should not point anyone by referring directly to their tutorials, | |but let say a came across a least 3 tutorials about concurrency | |programming with Ada that falls short of providing meaningful insight | |on the true capabilities of Ada in this field. They present task, | |delays, guard etc but don't put all these concepts in 'imaging' | |situations, which resumes the power of the tasking model. Those did | |not referred to typical uses of Ada, real problem solving that would | |enlighten its non naive usage. The offer for tutorials that presents | |a classical introduction to Ada as being a general programming | |language, with enhanced capabilities (tasking model, real-time annex | |etc), is too important. Many like me would benefit from more | |specialized tutorials, like let say a middle size embedded project, | |covering simply, many or all the main concepts provided by Ada and | |their sound usage. | | | |To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial | |as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can | |find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a | |quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master | |thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared | |with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding | |(compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great | |starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit | |austere books to sink in. | | | | | |> It would be constructive if you could be more specific.  In particular I| |> would be very interested in ideas on how to improve the first contact a | |> newbie can have with Ada. | | | |Oh yes, I have ideas! | | | |1. From my searches, it seems most people active with Ada are | |registered and composed article on Ada Programming (Wikibooks). Tell | |me if I am wrong?" | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| I do not believe that this is true. |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"2. A stable Ada home should be enforced (it confuses the newbs not to | |know where this month, this year you guys are)." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| Many members of the Ada community hate or are unpleasant to each other. |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"[..] | | | |iv. In the beginner section, | |a first tutorial for setting up Ada. One windows, one Linux. (if on | |Linux GPS is crap, hide it, tutorial should be made to use emacs with | |Ada) | | | | | |> | |> -- | |> Ludovic Brenta." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| This is a major problem. The aforementioned outsider reported: !________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________! !"[..] ! ! ! !Let's start with this site: "***http://www.ada-europe.org/***". It has manuals in the html format, which I haven't spotted the first time I checked it, but a .pdf version would be fine. A list of manuals published from springer can be found, but, at least at first sight I cannot find any reviews of the book, as I do in ACCU. In fact, the site has a link to a reference manual in .pdf version, but when I try to download it... "Oops! This page appears broken. HTTP 404 - File not found." ! ! ! !In this site a list of compilers can be found. Let's check the site: "***http://www.adacore.com/home/***". It is not obvious at first site that I must pay for it. Apparently from the site "***http://www.adalog.fr/freeada1.htm***" I can download a free compiler. Let's see... No, but from there I can reach a site: "***http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuada/files/***" where I can download a free compiler...I managed to download a compressed package, but now what? The help isn't really there and I suspect I can only install this compiler on Linux. If I have windows, I'm screwed...Ok, I've came across of four sites now...! ! ! !Ok, I give up...Let's try this one: "***http://www.adahome.com/***". I should not complain so much..."***http://www.adahome.com/Tutorials/Lovelace/lovelace.htm***" seems to be a tutorial for Ada...but it assumes I already now something of other languages, which is not a problem if I had tomething to write the code on and compile it. ! ! ! !I do not know if this was what you expected. My problem is not buying a book, but as I told you the Glassborow's (C++) book assumes I know nothing. It is true that perhaps I coul download Quincy in the net, but he clearly tells me how tu use it and my only concern is the code. If I have an equivalent book about Ada, I won't mind buying it. I never thought of it, but perhaps I can use Quincy to write Ada? I can try... ! ! ! ![..]" ! !________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________! Yours sincerely, Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester