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: 103376,3be76ca884705a45 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 06:01:34 -0600 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 07:01:15 -0500 From: "Peter C. Chapin" Subject: Re: is Ada still being used for teaching at universities? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (WNT 1167 2008-08-23) X-X-Sender: pcc09070@vtc.vsc.edu@webmail.vtc.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-wZbhSitc2+0yi3GWruCIOl7TkMFTK8S8CWRF86SP1+liooWNfkRJFmOToCVFW5FLjIlSfLxukmpy1tt!Ot1Kxb65iy2mKnjG1RrDPXE2pOePZ7FMsmw6pk7U9RRqQTxu8vcT1APbY3BirvxenCGlp9lu+Q== X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 3049 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:19071 Date: 2011-03-12T07:01:15-05:00 List-Id: On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > I made a survey of text books today at my university book store, and I > could not find a single book on Ada (nor on Fortran for that matter). At Vermont Technical College Ada is not officially covered in any of our standard courses. However, I have presented it as an auxiliary topic in a few courses. One year, for example, I taught a special topics course in which the students built a weather station as a group project using Ada. I'm not the only faculty member who uses Ada in the classroom. We have an adjunct who uses the language in his business (he sees it as a competitive advantage) and also presents it in the courses he teaches when he can. We have also made significant use of the Ada and SPARK in some special projects. Those projects have involved a number of students over the last few years but the projects are not a direct part of the curriculum. Last year one of those students applied for a job at a shop where Ada was being used. The employer was interested in (and I think a little surprised by) the fact that he knew Ada but the position they were looking to fill did not require language. In the end he didn't get the job. Another student told me that during an interview she proudly told the interviewer that she knew Ada (it had become her favorite language). Apparently he said, "Ada? Does anybody still use that?" So I guess it wasn't seen as an advantage in that situation. Alas. > It looks like C/C++ is still popular for teaching, I find this amazing :) We do a lot with C and C++ in our computer engineering technology program. C is so dominant in the world of embedded systems, device drivers, etc, that it would be negligent not to cover it. Peter P.S. The adjunct I mentioned earlier is a former VTC student who was first exposed to Ada in one of my classes.