Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[PnkFlyd]

In a previous thread many people mentioned that they use Cohen's book,
as do our staff here at my work (15 Ada programmers).

Cohen's website http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/ncohen.index.html
does not mention any recent activity in the area writing a 3rd edition
to incorporate Ada05.

Have any of you heard from Cohen any interest in doing so?  Do you
think there is enough of an interest to make it a financially viable
option that we could possibly champion?  I would hate to see Cohen's
excellent book not be picked up by new Ada programmers just because
the book is "out of date".

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[pakman]

Greetings,

As a reviewer of Cohen's Ada as a 2nd Language, 2nd ed, I had contacted Mr. 
Cohen and asked him if he had any plans of updating his excellent text for 
Ada 2005.

He replied that he did not have any plans to revise the text. I suspect his 
work has taken him away from keeping up with Ada 2005.

Most unfortunate, as I've considered Mr. Cohen's text the be the most 
complete and nearly perfect of all the Ada texts.

Perhaps if we petition IBM and Mr. Cohen he might reconsider.

I would be willing to review the text again.

John Cupak

"PnkFlyd" <pnkflyd831@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1177680878.226297.151180@s33g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> In a previous thread many people mentioned that they use Cohen's book,
> as do our staff here at my work (15 Ada programmers).
>
> Cohen's website 
> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/ncohen.index.html
> does not mention any recent activity in the area writing a 3rd edition
> to incorporate Ada05.
>
> Have any of you heard from Cohen any interest in doing so?  Do you
> think there is enough of an interest to make it a financially viable
> option that we could possibly champion?  I would hate to see Cohen's
> excellent book not be picked up by new Ada programmers just because
> the book is "out of date".
> 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[adaworks]

Dr. Cohen works for IBM and IBM has very little interest in
Ada.

Even Rational, a company now owned by IBM and originally founded
to build Ada compilers and tools, has pretty much lost its way with
regard to Ada.

It is an economic issue, as well. Since the compiler publishers can no
longer charge inflated prices for Ada compilers for a captive customer,
as they could during the years of the mandate, the economic incentive
has diminished.   That fact, coupled with the fact that IBM, for the
most part, has never demonstrated any interest in nor competence
in, Ada, rules out any liklihood that Dr. Cohen will given the resources
he needs to update his book.

I originally intended to update my own book, Ada Distilled.  I had hoped
to be able to do so by this Spring.   However, economics again prevails.
The school where I teach has abandoned any interest in Ada, and I am
required to focus my attention on other topics.   The text of Ada Distilled
is in the public domain, pretty much as open source, so anyone who might
want to update it, as a consortium, or as an individual, is free to do so. I
would only hope that such an effort would be carried out in the spririt of
the original work with an emphasis on clarity tempered with brevity.

Richard Riehle

"pakman" <pakman744@nospam.com> wrote in message 
news:YImdnaBvGOMUjK_bnZ2dnUVZ_ualnZ2d@comcast.com...
> Greetings,
>
> As a reviewer of Cohen's Ada as a 2nd Language, 2nd ed, I had contacted Mr. 
> Cohen and asked him if he had any plans of updating his excellent text for Ada 
> 2005.
>
> He replied that he did not have any plans to revise the text. I suspect his 
> work has taken him away from keeping up with Ada 2005.
>
> Most unfortunate, as I've considered Mr. Cohen's text the be the most complete 
> and nearly perfect of all the Ada texts.
>
> Perhaps if we petition IBM and Mr. Cohen he might reconsider.
>
> I would be willing to review the text again.
>
> John Cupak
>
> "PnkFlyd" <pnkflyd831@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:1177680878.226297.151180@s33g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>> In a previous thread many people mentioned that they use Cohen's book,
>> as do our staff here at my work (15 Ada programmers).
>>
>> Cohen's website 
>> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/ncohen.index.html
>> does not mention any recent activity in the area writing a 3rd edition
>> to incorporate Ada05.
>>
>> Have any of you heard from Cohen any interest in doing so?  Do you
>> think there is enough of an interest to make it a financially viable
>> option that we could possibly champion?  I would hate to see Cohen's
>> excellent book not be picked up by new Ada programmers just because
>> the book is "out of date".
>>
>
> 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[Chip and Allie Orange]

Hi Richard,

Just one note: my brother-in-law worked for Rational, and now for IBM, and 
is their lead programmer on the run-time for Apex.

They have reduced their staff, and aren't making much effort in marketing 
it, but they are still supporting and developing Apex.

As far as I can tell, it's the lack of marketing, not support, that gives 
the impression that they've "lost their way" in regards to Ada.  I also 
understand that Apex is still considered the market leader in Ada 
cross-compilers for embedded systems.

BTW, I am especially appreciative of your book being made available in 
electronic form, and not just paper.  I do wish more e-books were available 
for Ada.

Chip


<adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
news:Y%KYh.1684$tp5.1456@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net...
> Dr. Cohen works for IBM and IBM has very little interest in
> Ada.
>
> Even Rational, a company now owned by IBM and originally founded
> to build Ada compilers and tools, has pretty much lost its way with
> regard to Ada.
>
> It is an economic issue, as well. Since the compiler publishers can no
> longer charge inflated prices for Ada compilers for a captive customer,
> as they could during the years of the mandate, the economic incentive
> has diminished.   That fact, coupled with the fact that IBM, for the
> most part, has never demonstrated any interest in nor competence
> in, Ada, rules out any liklihood that Dr. Cohen will given the resources
> he needs to update his book.
>
> I originally intended to update my own book, Ada Distilled.  I had hoped
> to be able to do so by this Spring.   However, economics again prevails.
> The school where I teach has abandoned any interest in Ada, and I am
> required to focus my attention on other topics.   The text of Ada 
> Distilled
> is in the public domain, pretty much as open source, so anyone who might
> want to update it, as a consortium, or as an individual, is free to do so. 
> I
> would only hope that such an effort would be carried out in the spririt of
> the original work with an emphasis on clarity tempered with brevity.
>
> Richard Riehle
>
> "pakman" <pakman744@nospam.com> wrote in message 
> news:YImdnaBvGOMUjK_bnZ2dnUVZ_ualnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> Greetings,
>>
>> As a reviewer of Cohen's Ada as a 2nd Language, 2nd ed, I had contacted 
>> Mr. Cohen and asked him if he had any plans of updating his excellent 
>> text for Ada 2005.
>>
>> He replied that he did not have any plans to revise the text. I suspect 
>> his work has taken him away from keeping up with Ada 2005.
>>
>> Most unfortunate, as I've considered Mr. Cohen's text the be the most 
>> complete and nearly perfect of all the Ada texts.
>>
>> Perhaps if we petition IBM and Mr. Cohen he might reconsider.
>>
>> I would be willing to review the text again.
>>
>> John Cupak
>>
>> "PnkFlyd" <pnkflyd831@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>> news:1177680878.226297.151180@s33g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>>> In a previous thread many people mentioned that they use Cohen's book,
>>> as do our staff here at my work (15 Ada programmers).
>>>
>>> Cohen's website 
>>> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/ncohen.index.html
>>> does not mention any recent activity in the area writing a 3rd edition
>>> to incorporate Ada05.
>>>
>>> Have any of you heard from Cohen any interest in doing so?  Do you
>>> think there is enough of an interest to make it a financially viable
>>> option that we could possibly champion?  I would hate to see Cohen's
>>> excellent book not be picked up by new Ada programmers just because
>>> the book is "out of date".
>>>
>>
>>
>
> 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[adaworks]

"Chip and Allie Orange" <acorange@comcast.net> wrote in message 
news:Vs2dnYEMs4vRWa7bnZ2dnUVZ_g-dnZ2d@comcast.com...
> Hi Richard,
>
> They [Rational] have reduced their staff, and aren't making much effort in 
> marketing it, but they are still supporting and developing Apex.
>
I have enormous respect for the technical staff at Rational and their
efforts with Ada.   The product continues to be one of the best
available and, until I retired AdaWorks a few years ago, I had
clients who were using Apex and related Ada tools from Rational
successfully.
>
> As far as I can tell, it's the lack of marketing, not support, that gives the 
> impression that they've "lost their way" in regards to Ada.  I also understand 
> that Apex is still considered the market leader in Ada cross-compilers for 
> embedded systems.
>
I am a little out-of-date with my knowledge of who the market leaders
are.  However, I do see a sad lack of leadership in the marketing,
promotion or agressive selling of Ada from a company that was originally
founded to do just that.  Rational was created as an Ada company, right
from the beginning.  Now they seem to be making an attempt to hide
that information from their more Ada-ignorant customers.

Instead of taking a courageous position with regard to Ada, they have
positioned it as a "Oh.  Since you asked, we do have an Ada compiler,
but we don't want to talk about it unless you insist," product.  Rational
was one of the companies that made sure, not malicious intent, but by
inept marketing decisions, that Ada would not find its way into the
commercial marketplace.

They bought Meridian, one of the affordable Ada compilers that had
a built-in library for developing PC applications, and promptly killed it.
They hired some of the best Ada marketing people available such as
Jerry Rudisin and Lori Heyman, and failed to use them effectively in
the promotion of their Ada products.   And a former luminary of the
Ada community ( a former DoD Ada official) told me that he advised
Rational to subdue its visibility as an Ada company and focus on the
non-Ada marketplace.   This was, from an economic perspective,
good advice since they have risen to a powerful position of prominence
in the world of software development tools.   But the decision appears
to have been taken at the expense of Ada, the very technology that
helped them acquire the resources necessary to achieve their current,
and well-deserved success.

After the end of the mandate, a lot of Ada compiler publishers, no longer
able to depend on the sale of overpriced products, fell into hard times.  I
am not very smart about the marketing side of things, but I think that
some of those companies could have turned this into an advantage
instead of a [to use a popular, but silly phrase] "cut and run" decision.

When one considers the current collection of available programming languages
and compares each against the current Ada standard, it is clear that Ada
stands out as a far better choice, in most cases, than those now in favor. C++
is a hideous choice.  Java falls short.    C#, while a little better than Java, 
is
not what it could have been.     Python and Ruby are excellent for some kind
of applications.   Eiffel, while also an excellent language design from which
future Ada language revisions could continue to learn, is a little short of what
we get from Ada, especially for large-scale, safety-critical software.

But the very name, Ada, is met with dersision within the misinformed software
community.   Do we really want software development decisions made on the
basis of bad information.   Do we really want software built with languages such
as C++ that are inherently error-prone?   Do we really want our DoD software
deployed in languages that are as inefficient and full of maintainability 
concerns
as a language such as Java?

Courage is the missing element.  I would love to see the management at Rational
become courageous enough to begin promoting Ada once again.   That would not
require them to hide their other excellent products (I like most of them).  It 
would
simply be a way for them to reinvigorate both their own Ada products, raise
the level of awareness for Ada, and actively acknowledge that they have one of
the most powerful tools for the creation of both military and commercial 
software
available anywhere.  Why would anyone with products as good as theirs want
to "hide their light under a bushel?"

Richard Riehle


> BTW, I am especially appreciative of your book being made available in 
> electronic form, and not just paper.  I do wish more e-books were available 
> for Ada.
>
> Chip
>
>
> <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
> news:Y%KYh.1684$tp5.1456@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net...
>> Dr. Cohen works for IBM and IBM has very little interest in
>> Ada.
>>
>> Even Rational, a company now owned by IBM and originally founded
>> to build Ada compilers and tools, has pretty much lost its way with
>> regard to Ada.
>>
>> It is an economic issue, as well. Since the compiler publishers can no
>> longer charge inflated prices for Ada compilers for a captive customer,
>> as they could during the years of the mandate, the economic incentive
>> has diminished.   That fact, coupled with the fact that IBM, for the
>> most part, has never demonstrated any interest in nor competence
>> in, Ada, rules out any liklihood that Dr. Cohen will given the resources
>> he needs to update his book.
>>
>> I originally intended to update my own book, Ada Distilled.  I had hoped
>> to be able to do so by this Spring.   However, economics again prevails.
>> The school where I teach has abandoned any interest in Ada, and I am
>> required to focus my attention on other topics.   The text of Ada Distilled
>> is in the public domain, pretty much as open source, so anyone who might
>> want to update it, as a consortium, or as an individual, is free to do so. I
>> would only hope that such an effort would be carried out in the spririt of
>> the original work with an emphasis on clarity tempered with brevity.
>>
>> Richard Riehle
>>
>> "pakman" <pakman744@nospam.com> wrote in message 
>> news:YImdnaBvGOMUjK_bnZ2dnUVZ_ualnZ2d@comcast.com...
>>> Greetings,
>>>
>>> As a reviewer of Cohen's Ada as a 2nd Language, 2nd ed, I had contacted Mr. 
>>> Cohen and asked him if he had any plans of updating his excellent text for 
>>> Ada 2005.
>>>
>>> He replied that he did not have any plans to revise the text. I suspect his 
>>> work has taken him away from keeping up with Ada 2005.
>>>
>>> Most unfortunate, as I've considered Mr. Cohen's text the be the most 
>>> complete and nearly perfect of all the Ada texts.
>>>
>>> Perhaps if we petition IBM and Mr. Cohen he might reconsider.
>>>
>>> I would be willing to review the text again.
>>>
>>> John Cupak
>>>
>>> "PnkFlyd" <pnkflyd831@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>>> news:1177680878.226297.151180@s33g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>>>> In a previous thread many people mentioned that they use Cohen's book,
>>>> as do our staff here at my work (15 Ada programmers).
>>>>
>>>> Cohen's website 
>>>> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/ncohen.index.html
>>>> does not mention any recent activity in the area writing a 3rd edition
>>>> to incorporate Ada05.
>>>>
>>>> Have any of you heard from Cohen any interest in doing so?  Do you
>>>> think there is enough of an interest to make it a financially viable
>>>> option that we could possibly champion?  I would hate to see Cohen's
>>>> excellent book not be picked up by new Ada programmers just because
>>>> the book is "out of date".
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
> 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[Lucretia]

On Apr 27, 2:34 pm, PnkFlyd <pnkflyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In a previous thread many people mentioned that they use Cohen's book,
> as do our staff here at my work (15 Ada programmers).
>
> Cohen's websitehttp://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/ncohen....
> does not mention any recent activity in the area writing a 3rd edition
> to incorporate Ada05.
>
> Have any of you heard from Cohen any interest in doing so?  Do you
> think there is enough of an interest to make it a financially viable
> option that we could possibly champion?  I would hate to see Cohen's
> excellent book not be picked up by new Ada programmers just because
> the book is "out of date".

I sent an email to Norman Cohen a while back about an update to the
book, here's his reply:

"No, I have no plans to update the book. I've moved on to other
pursuits."

I then replied to ask if the source to the book will be released (as
it's well out of print now), I received no reply ;)

Oh well.

Luke.

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[adaworks]

"Lucretia" <lucretia9@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:1178149620.087751.309640@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 27, 2:34 pm, PnkFlyd <pnkflyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I sent an email to Norman Cohen a while back about an update to the
> book, here's his reply:
>
1) Cohen's book is not really "out-of-date."  While it does not
    cover some of the new features of the latest version of Ada,
    it does cover the features of the largest revision of the language,
    to date.   Everything in the Cohen book will still work.

2) John Barnes has written a book on Ada 2005.  That book is quite
    comprehensive.   It is published by Addison-Wesley, and anything
    you need to update your knowledge of Ada is in that book.  The
    criticism of Barnes' book has sometimes been that the examples
    are not as fully coded as in the Cohen book.   Dr. Barnes has
    addressed that criticism and you will find some fully coded examples.

3) I will make the electronically modifiable source code and text for
    my own book, Ada Distilled, available to someone who is serious
    about updating it for Ada 2005.   So far, no one has taken me up
    on that.  At present, I don't have the time to do it myself.  That was
    my original intent, but too much time is passing without that update
   occurring.

    Ada Distilled comes with a lot of small source file programs, all fully
    coded and most of them tested, that one can play with and use for
    experiments.   Whoever updates Ada Distilled will have to add to the
    collection of working Ada programs to keep the spirit of that book alive.

Richard Riehle 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[Lucretia]

On May 4, 3:33 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> "Lucretia" <lucret...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:1178149620.087751.309640@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...> On Apr 27, 2:34 pm, PnkFlyd <pnkflyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I sent an email to Norman Cohen a while back about an update to the
> > book, here's his reply:
>
> 1) Cohen's book is not really "out-of-date."  While it does not
>     cover some of the new features of the latest version of Ada,
>     it does cover the features of the largest revision of the language,
>     to date.   Everything in the Cohen book will still work.

I never said it was out of date, I said it was out of print. Big
difference!

Also, with it being out of print, the cost of the book is hugely
inflated, over here it's at least £70, not necessarily for a new copy!

> 2) John Barnes has written a book on Ada 2005.  That book is quite
>     comprehensive.   It is published by Addison-Wesley, and anything
>     you need to update your knowledge of Ada is in that book.  The
>     criticism of Barnes' book has sometimes been that the examples
>     are not as fully coded as in the Cohen book.   Dr. Barnes has
>     addressed that criticism and you will find some fully coded examples.

The thing I've heard about the Cohen book is that is supposedly covers
in detail how a runtime could be written for an Ada compiler. I doubt
that this can be said about the Barnes book.

Luke.

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[adaworks]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 567 bytes --]


"Lucretia" <lucretia9@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:1178290919.801968.176460@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
On May 4, 3:33 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

>I never said it was out of date, I said it was out of print. Big
>difference!
>
>Also, with it being out of print, the cost of the book is hugely
>inflated, over here it's at least �70, not necessarily for a new copy!

Sorry I misunderstood.  For inexpensive copies of the Cohen book
try,

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0070115893/ref=lp_g_1/104-5198524-8868747

Richard Riehle 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[Sloan.Kohler]

On May 4, 11:36 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Sorry I misunderstood.  For inexpensive copies of the Cohen book
> try,
>
>    http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0070115893/ref=lp_g_1/104-5198...
>
Buyer beware that all the inxpensive copies are the Ada 83 based first
edition that was published in 1986.  The Ada 95 based second edition
tends to sell for $80 USD and up. New copies are typically $130.

I wish the author & publisher would sell it as a PDF file. I'd pay for
that because it it would be much easier to search.

-- Sloan

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[adaworks]

<Sloan.Kohler@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1178304999.625739.46650@y5g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
> On May 4, 11:36 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry I misunderstood.  For inexpensive copies of the Cohen book
>> try,
>>
>>    http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0070115893/ref=lp_g_1/104-5198...
>>
> Buyer beware that all the inxpensive copies are the Ada 83 based first
> edition that was published in 1986.  The Ada 95 based second edition
> tends to sell for $80 USD and up. New copies are typically $130.
>
I sometimes encounter a copy of the Second Edition of Cohen in a
used book store for a much lower price.  If I find any of these in
the future, I'll buy them and make them available at whatever price
I pay, plus postage.   I used to have quite a few copies in my own
company's inventory, but since I am no longer in the Ada consulting
business, I have only one copy left.

Hmmmm.  I wonder if I could scan it?  Well, it is 1133 pages. That would
be a lot of work.   More than one weekend, I think.

Richard Riehle
================================================== 

Re: Cohen: "Ada As A Second Language" - 05 Update?

[Christopher J. Henrich]

In article <1178290919.801968.176460@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Lucretia <lucretia9@lycos.co.uk> wrote:

> > "Lucretia" <lucret...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
> >
> > news:1178149620.087751.309640@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...> On Apr 27,
> > 2:34 pm, PnkFlyd <pnkflyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I sent an email to Norman Cohen a while back about an update to the
> > > book, here's his reply:
> >
> > 1) Cohen's book is not really "out-of-date."  While it does not
> >     cover some of the new features of the latest version of Ada,
> >     it does cover the features of the largest revision of the language,
> >     to date.   Everything in the Cohen book will still work.
> 
> I never said it was out of date, I said it was out of print. Big
> difference!
> 
> Also, with it being out of print, the cost of the book is hugely
> inflated, over here it's at least ÔøΩ70, not necessarily for a new copy!

Can you buy from Abebooks <http://www.abebooks.com/> ?

If so, you can find several copies at much less that 70 pounds. It's
also true that you can find some copies at more than 200 pounds, but
they must be, well, special.

-- 
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
God just doesn't fit inside a single religion.