Re: Group newbie !

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Mike says

"The sort of thing I'm after is a book with a chapter devoted to Ada
statements, one per page (or so), giving an explanation, clear syntax,
a couple of examples and a list of related or similar statements. The
statements should be listed in alphabetical order as well."

The fact that you think this would be an appropriate way to present a
programming language shows that you do have a lot to learn from Ada!

The fundamental concepts of a language like Ada revolve around its notion
of types and objects and operations. The statement forms are a relatively
trivial part of the language.

I suspect what you need is one of the "flowery" books.

Meanwhile, try rumaging around at www.adahome.com

By the way, Ada is probably a good choice for teaching. One thing to
remember is that the purpose of the course you are taking has nothing
to do with learning to code in some language, or gathering coding skills.
it has to do with learning some fundamnental concepts about programming
languages and programming. You seem to assume that the appropriate choice
for a programming language for teaching would be necessarily to use a 
widely used language -- this is a common misconception, particularly among
those just starting to learn programming!

It is a little like expecting a math course to begin with useful stuff like
how to balance a checkbook :-)