* Re: Looking for ADA
[not found] <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>
@ 1997-03-14 0:00 ` Rick Thorne
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Dave Wood
` (2 more replies)
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Corey Minyard
1997-03-17 0:00 ` David Emery
2 siblings, 3 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Rick Thorne @ 1997-03-14 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>, "Warren Wickline"
<wickline@comp-res.com> wrote:
> I'm still a college student, and I was wondering if anyone could help me
> find a cheap ada compiler.
For the PC?!? This is kind of like asking "Gee, I'm married with 8 kids.
Can anyone help me get a cheap divorce and keep my child support to a
minimum?"
As a college student, why are you bothering with Ada anyway? My
recommendations:
1) Learn C, C++, Java, and other language technologies that actually have
a future in the US.
2) Don't sweat Ada unless you get a job in a US DoD contractor's shop or a
job in Europe, then let THEM pay you to work while you learn the language.
3) Keep your C, C++, & Java skills sharp whilst you work with Ada, because
Ada's going away quickly, yes, even in the DoD world because of the Perry
Initiative and the soon-to-happen elimination of the Ada Requirements
(probably by july '97).
4) Learn OOA/D methods; these are the elements of the Software Crisis
unsolved by Ada. As Brooks stated in "No Silver Bullet": Ada is just a
programming language. It doesn't cover all the ground by any means.
Good luck, and look to a future that HAS a future.
--
? Rick Thorne ? "I'm quite illiterate, ?
? software engineer by day ? but I read a lot" ?
? harried father of two by night ? J. D. Salinger ?
? rick.thorne@lmco.com ? ?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
1997-03-14 0:00 ` Looking for ADA Rick Thorne
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Dave Wood
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` John Breen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-23 0:00 ` the one and only real true kibo
2 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: John Breen @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1409 bytes --]
<HTML><BODY>
Rick Thorne wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>In article <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>,
"Warren Wickline"
<BR><wickline@comp-res.com> wrote:
<BR>
<BR><I>> I'm still a college student, and I was wondering if anyone could
help me</I>
<BR><I>> find a cheap ada compiler.</I>
<BR>
<BR>For the PC?!? This is kind of like asking "Gee, I'm married
with 8 kids.
<BR>Can anyone help me get a cheap divorce and keep my child support to a
<BR>minimum?"
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Not really - GNAT is free, as is the ADACAPS�IDE which runs with it.
Try <A HREF="ftp://ftp.cs.nyu.edu">ftp://ftp.cs.nyu.edu</A> (at least I
think that's it :))
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>
<BR>
<BR>As a college student, why are you bothering with Ada anyway? My
<BR>recommendations:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Some universities and colleges, like mine now use Ada rather than Pascal
and C for teching programming. I was forced to learn Ada 83 and now
Ada-95 just because my Uni. decided to change my course on me.
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>
<BR>1) Learn C, C++, Java, and other language technologies that actually have
<BR>a future in the US.
<BR>
<BR>2) Don't sweat Ada unless you get a job in a US DoD contractor's shop or
a
<BR>job in Europe, then let THEM pay you to work while you learn the language.
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Cheers,
<BR>
<BR>john Breen
</BODY>
</HTML>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
1997-03-14 0:00 ` Looking for ADA Rick Thorne
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` Dave Wood
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-15 0:00 ` John Breen
1997-03-23 0:00 ` the one and only real true kibo
2 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Dave Wood @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
Rick Thorne wrote:
>
> In article <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>, "Warren Wickline"
> <wickline@comp-res.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm still a college student, and I was wondering if anyone could help me
> > find a cheap ada compiler.
>
> For the PC?!? This is kind of like asking "Gee, I'm married with 8 kids.
> Can anyone help me get a cheap divorce and keep my child support to a
> minimum?"
I'd say you're out of touch. ObjectAda for Windows costs $50
for students. Last I checked, this was less expensive than
(for example) the Borland C++ educational price. Alternatively,
you can get a free Special Edition of ObjectAda for Windows attached
to Mike Feldman's Ada 95 textbook.
For that matter, GNAT is free as well, but for the effort of the
downloading.
> As a college student, why are you bothering with Ada anyway?
Perhaps because his professor recognizes that Ada is superior
as a teaching language to C/C++?
> My recommendations:
>
> 1) Learn C, C++, Java, and other language technologies that actually have
> a future in the US.
Interesting. I wouldn't bank too much on C/C++, as the rise of Java
will come at the expense of these languages more than any other. Not
that C/C++ will rot away and die, but I wouldn't forecast a whole lot
of growth. There will be a glut of C/C++ programmers out there,
competing for the same set of opportunities. Those opportunities will
be less and less interesting as the fun stuff migrates to Java and
the really complex and challenging stuff remains a strong suit of Ada
(which also supports the JVM, but that's another topic.)
> 2) Don't sweat Ada unless you get a job in a US DoD contractor's shop or a
> job in Europe, then let THEM pay you to work while you learn the language.
... or unless you might be interested in working in some boring area
like
cutting edge Boing commercial avionics, Westinghouse nuclear plant
controls, or the NASA space station, rather than experience the
excitement
of writing unix file filters and hacking null pointer dereferences.
Well, if you can stereotype, so can I. :-)
> 3) Keep your C, C++, & Java skills sharp whilst you work with Ada, because
> Ada's going away quickly, yes, even in the DoD world because of the Perry
> Initiative and the soon-to-happen elimination of the Ada Requirements
> (probably by july '97).
Interesting theory. I can tell you that sales of my products have
risen sharply over the past year, and I can assure you the phenomenon
has nothing at all to do with DoD requirements.
Still, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from having "sharp skills"
in C, C++, or Java. After all, we encourage multi-lingual development
solutions. It's a surreal experience to see Ada source code being
debugged by Visual J++.
In any event, my position has always been that anyone who cannot
ramp up to speed in a very short period of time for any general
purpose langauge has no business considering him/herself a software
engineer. That's where the "sharp skills" pay off. Language is
important to the program, but should be irrelevant to the programmer.
> 4) Learn OOA/D methods; these are the elements of the Software Crisis
> unsolved by Ada. As Brooks stated in "No Silver Bullet": Ada is just a
> programming language. It doesn't cover all the ground by any means.
I think this is perhaps a perverse interpretation of a very fine
bit of writing.
Further, if you think that OOA/D methods are in any way a silver
bullet, I'd suggest you take another look at Brooks' title. His
central point was that it takes good methods, good tools, good
languages, good processes, and above all good engineers to slay
the beast. Encouraging a student to forego looking into a good
language seems inconsistent with your reference to Brooks.
> Good luck, and look to a future that HAS a future.
Skilled and thoughtful software engineers have an excellent
future, regardless of transient technological choices. Personally,
I'd rather work on *projects* that have a future. Anybody can
get a job, but if I'm going to spend years of my life on a project,
I'd like to see it fly rather than fall into the great software
graveyard. My opinion and experience is that projects based on Ada
have a better shot at making it over the long haul.
> --
> ? Rick Thorne ? "I'm quite illiterate, ?
> ? software engineer by day ? but I read a lot" ?
> ? harried father of two by night ? J. D. Salinger ?
> ? rick.thorne@lmco.com ? ?
Don't quit your night job. :-)
-- Dave Wood
-- Product Manager, ObjectAda for Windows
-- Aonix - "We don' need no stinking mandate."
-- http://www.aonix.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
[not found] <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>
1997-03-14 0:00 ` Looking for ADA Rick Thorne
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` Corey Minyard
1997-03-17 0:00 ` David Emery
2 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Corey Minyard @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
You shouldn't post on groups where you can only display your ignorance
about a subject.
rick.thorne@lmco.com (Rick Thorne) writes:
>
> In article <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>, "Warren Wickline"
> <wickline@comp-res.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm still a college student, and I was wondering if anyone could help me
> > find a cheap ada compiler.
>
> For the PC?!? This is kind of like asking "Gee, I'm married with 8 kids.
> Can anyone help me get a cheap divorce and keep my child support to a
> minimum?"
Yes, you can get a commercial quality Ada compiler for FREE (see
http://www.gnat.com). I use it daily for my job; it is very high
quality. You can get other commercial compilers for relatively cheap,
including one that produces Java bytecodes for $99 (or $40 if you are
a student). You can get IDEs, etc. See http://www.adahome.com for
compiler info.
>
> As a college student, why are you bothering with Ada anyway? My
> recommendations:
Perhaps the class he is taking is using Ada? Perhaps he wants to pass
it? The use of Ada in beginning CS classes is increasing dramatically
(see http://www.adahome.com). I haven't seen the original post yet
(since usenet is not causal :-), perhaps I missed his reason, though.
>
> 1) Learn C, C++, Java, and other language technologies that actually have
> a future in the US.
>
> 2) Don't sweat Ada unless you get a job in a US DoD contractor's shop or a
> job in Europe, then let THEM pay you to work while you learn the language.
Or Boeing or any of their contractors (commercial aircraft), or Hughes
(commercial air traffic control), or me. It might be useful to know
Ada ahead of time, but it may not matter. In general, I have found
knowing multiple languages useful in many respects.
>
> 3) Keep your C, C++, & Java skills sharp whilst you work with Ada, because
> Ada's going away quickly, yes, even in the DoD world because of the Perry
> Initiative and the soon-to-happen elimination of the Ada Requirements
> (probably by july '97).
Ada is not going away. The removal of the mandate will probably
improve usage of Ada. Ada has never competed on a level playing field
with other languages because of the mandate (drove compiler prices up,
people don't like to be forced to do things, etc). Now it will. It
is used extensively in safety critical systems (aircraft systems,
biomedical, etc.) I think it will see increased usage. However,
there is a tremendous amount of prejudice to overcome.
>
> 4) Learn OOA/D methods; these are the elements of the Software Crisis
> unsolved by Ada. As Brooks stated in "No Silver Bullet": Ada is just a
> programming language. It doesn't cover all the ground by any means.
This I agree with (as well as keeping multi-language skills sharp).
And, of course, there is no silver bullet. But Ada95 is an OO
language and it covers more ground than any other language I have ever
used (and I have used a lot).
>
> Good luck, and look to a future that HAS a future.
>
Warren, I too hope you do well. And don't believe everything you read
(written by me or anyone else). Verify things; you might be surprised
what you find!
--
Corey Minyard Internet: minyard@acm.org
Work: minyard@nortel.ca UUCP: minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Dave Wood
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Robert Dewar @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
<<For that matter, GNAT is free as well, but for the effort of the
downloading.>>
Actually you can also get GNAT very cheaply, not quite free, by getting
the Walnut Creek Ada CD ROM, which has lots of versions of GNAT on it,
as well as lots of other good Ada stuff.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
1997-03-15 0:00 ` John Breen
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Robert Dewar @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
John Breen writes (showing he knows about as much about how to post to
newsgroups as he knows about Ada):
<<<BR>2) Don't sweat Ada unless you get a job in a US DoD contractor's shop or
a
<BR>job in Europe, then let THEM pay you to work while you learn the language.
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Cheers,
<BR>
<BR>john Breen>>
As has been mentioned many times here and elsewhere, the critical thing is
to learn how to program, that's the hard part. Ada makes that part a little
less painful than learning C or C++, but the issue of learning particular
syntax is pretty much irrelevant, what you need to learn is how programs
and algorithms are structured -- again, Ada makes that tough job of learning
a bit easier.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
[not found] <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>
1997-03-14 0:00 ` Looking for ADA Rick Thorne
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Corey Minyard
@ 1997-03-17 0:00 ` David Emery
2 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: David Emery @ 1997-03-17 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
I never realized that the HTML <BLOCKQUOTE> environment name was
an abbreviation for "A Quote from a Blockhead".
dave
--
Note: if email to me bounces, use 'emery@grebyn.com'
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Looking for ADA
1997-03-14 0:00 ` Looking for ADA Rick Thorne
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Dave Wood
1997-03-15 0:00 ` John Breen
@ 1997-03-23 0:00 ` the one and only real true kibo
2 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: the one and only real true kibo @ 1997-03-23 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Fri, 14 Mar 1997 09:53:08 -0800 in article <rick.thorne-1403970953080001@129.197.97.40> posted to comp.lang.ada, Rick Thorne <rick.thorne@lmco.com> wrote:
> In article <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>, "Warren Wickline"
> <wickline@comp-res.com> wrote:
> > I'm still a college student, and I was wondering if anyone could help me
> > find a cheap ada compiler.
> For the PC?!? This is kind of like asking "Gee, I'm married with 8 kids.
> Can anyone help me get a cheap divorce and keep my child support to a
> minimum?"
Ha ha ha.
> As a college student, why are you bothering with Ada anyway? My
> recommendations:
> 1) Learn C, C++, Java, and other language technologies that actually have
> a future in the US.
That's right - forget ADA, it's dead.
> 2) Don't sweat Ada unless you get a job in a US DoD contractor's shop or a
> job in Europe, then let THEM pay you to work while you learn the language.
Not a chance. Refuse to take a job that requires you to learn ADA.
> 3) Keep your C, C++, & Java skills sharp whilst you work with Ada, because
> Ada's going away quickly, yes, even in the DoD world because of the Perry
> Initiative and the soon-to-happen elimination of the Ada Requirements
> (probably by july '97).
Don't use ADA to begin with.
> 4) Learn OOA/D methods; these are the elements of the Software Crisis
> unsolved by Ada. As Brooks stated in "No Silver Bullet": Ada is just a
> programming language. It doesn't cover all the ground by any means.
You can do anythijg in SQL. Who needs a procedureal language anyway.
I am the only true <A HREF="http://www.dhp.com/~kibo">Kibo</A>.
Finger me for my PGP public key. Check out my home page for the coolest
way to vote on new newsgroup proposals or to issue Usenet cancels.
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
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[not found] <01bc2d83$4ca9e6a0$6966f4ce@wickline>
1997-03-14 0:00 ` Looking for ADA Rick Thorne
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Dave Wood
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-15 0:00 ` John Breen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-23 0:00 ` the one and only real true kibo
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Corey Minyard
1997-03-17 0:00 ` David Emery
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