Hello from DownUnder...

I would appreciate some general advice from experienced Ada programmers,
particularly (but not only) those using it as a teaching vehicle for
Computer Science courses etc.

As a young adult investigating learning programming as a hobby
(self-teaching on PC, Windows 98), I�ve been lurking for a while and have
looked at some relevant Ada sites. My purpose is to gradually and thoroughly
learn  computing constructs and ultimately to apply same and see how far I
can take this interest. I'm not making a career of it... well not yet
anyway.

To this end, I obviously need to commit to a particular language programming
environment (not necessarily a GUI development interface); yet there seem to
be several hurdles to even this crucial initial step.  It seems that there
are three essential threshold requirements, namely:

1) A free (preferably) downloadable programming environment that is installs
without fuss and instability
2) Good online and hardcopy support (tutorials and textbooks) for a BEGINNER
PROGRAMMER per se, not just beginners with that LANGUAGE
3) An online community that has a tradition of supporting such beginners to
programming.

BASIC and PASCAL very!! clearly fulfill these criteria and I am tempted to
start with one of them. However the posts of Richard Riehle and others on
this and other newsgroups speak so highly of Ada�s functionality and syntax
clarity that it�s hard to overlook this as a possibility.

On the other hand, and with the best will in the world, I can�t see that Ada
satisfies ANY of the three criteria above, though I am willing/wanting to be
convinced otherwise.

Specific Questions:
1) Am I not giving Ada sufficient credit for being a suitable entry-level
language for a BEGINNING PROGRAMMER?

2) Would you recommend that I immerse myself in either BASIC (QBasic) or
PASCAL (Borland TP7) for a couple of years (yes, OK... forget BASIC ;D) and
THEN springboard to Ada?

3) If you were to opt for Ada as an entry point, which particular dialect or
environment would be the most user friendly from a set up and
�learning-the-fundamentals� point of view. Since I have a choice, I�d like
an Ada encounter that is a FUN experience, rather than marred by
gratuitious, buggy FRUSTRATION (which is why I'm not keen on beginning with
C, C++ or Java, even though others do).

Please accept that I am not trying to offend anyone; it�s just that this
initial phase is somewhat forbidding to a neophyte and I need to be a
critical, hype-detecting, cynic ;D.

Many thanks in advance.

David.