Re: is Ada still being used for teaching at universities?

["Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>]

On 3/13/2011 6:22 AM, John McCormick wrote:
> On Mar 11, 8:33 pm, "Nasser M. Abbasi"<n...@12000.org>  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).
>>
>> --Nasser
>

> Ada is still being used for teaching.

That is good to know.

...
> Currently C++, Java, and increasingly Python are the major languages
> used in Freshman courses.

Yes, and Matlab for Engineering and many math departments as well.

> I'm finding students in my upper level
> courses who started out in Python haven't a clue about arrays.
> Another classic "low level" language feature bites the dust replaced
> by dynamic data structures from massive libraries.
>

Sure. Ask one of those students to code a linked list or a queue
from scratch for example, and they will look funny at you ;).

Everything is an object or a container these days. The old skills
of learning how to implement classical data structures from
scratch (linked list, queues, hash tables, binary tress, DAG's
etc...) are now replaced by just learning new API's of reusable
libraries.

It is a matter of finding the correct class or package and using it.
That is all what is needed. No need to know how it works from inside.
One can't really fight this trend, it is the new way of doing things.

> I have just returned from the ACM SIGCSE (Special Interest Group for
> Computer Science Education) where SIGAda has a booth in the exhibit
> hall.  Amazing how many people stop by to say how they would love to
> teach Ada to beginners but that the students would revolt if they did
> not teach one of the popular three languages.  I think we are the only
> discipline in which the content of Freahman courses is determined by
> the "want ads".
>
> John

Yes, schools teach what industry asks for. If industry starts
asking for graduates with Ada skills, then schools will start
teaching that.

--Nasser