From: Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org>
Subject: Re: Ada book help
Date: 1999/01/23
Date: 1999-01-23T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m3g191ahjv.fsf@mheaney.ni.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: swhalenF60DqH.ELD@netcom.com
Steve Whalen <swhalen@netcom.com> writes:
> Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org> wrote:
> [snip]
>
> : As a first book, I think John Barnes' Programming in Ada95, 2nd ed is
> : very good. It broadly covers that language, providing what I think is
> : just the right amount of detail.
>
> [snip]
>
> Out of curiosity, have you read the reviews of this book on Amazon.com?
> Do you think they are inaccurate? Unfair? (4 out of 5 trash it).
I like the book, and can't understand the vitriol of some of the
reviews of it at amazon.com.
Previous versions of the book have been criticized (not by me) because
there were only code "fragments," instead of complete examples. But the
new 2nd ed of this book rectifies that "flaw" by including a few
chapters that have complete, compilable examples.
It even comes with a CD, containing all the examples, and even a free
compiler.
What I want to learn from programming language book are idioms. What
"tricks" do you do to solve certain problems? Barnes gives examples
like that (like how to use limited, indefinite types to control instance
creation; cool iterator idioms).
In contrast, many other books are just a rehash of the RM.
Every time I read Barnes book, I learn something new. I also like that
at various places he cites how AIs how influenced the language in subtle
ways; thus, it's a living book.
> I'm curious, because I like to keep a list of books to recommend to
> people around to encourage interest in Ada95 whenever I encounter
> it, but want to be sure that I don't discourage someone by starting
> them off with a bad book (and have them turn their disappointment
> in the book, in to a dislike for Ada95).
>
> Most of the other Amazon.com review consensus's (?sp?) for Ada book's
> agree with my take on the book, where I have the book to compare.
Everyone is different, and probably looks for different things. My
reaction when reading Barnes is often, "Wow! That's really cool. I'm
gonna try to use that somewhere."
It's the wow factor that won me over. Other books just make my eyes
glaze over.
> I don't have the Barnes' book to look at, and while I'm not the
> "language lawyer" others on comp.lang.ada are, I've used Pascal
> and Ada for too many years to be able to look at a book from
> the perspective of a programmer who's never used / succeeded with
> a strongly typed language before.
Me too.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-01-23 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-01-22 0:00 Ada book help Richard
1999-01-22 0:00 ` westonpa
1999-01-22 0:00 ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
1999-01-23 0:00 ` JoeLngstn
1999-01-23 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-01-23 0:00 ` Steve Whalen
1999-01-23 0:00 ` Alexy Khrabrov
1999-01-25 0:00 ` David Botton
1999-01-26 0:00 ` Mordechai (Moti) Ben-Ari
1999-01-27 0:00 ` Alexy Khrabrov
1999-01-23 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney [this message]
1999-01-23 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
1999-01-24 0:00 ` Steve Whalen
1999-01-26 0:00 ` John Barnes' book reviews at Amazon (was Re: Ada book help) Pat Rogers
1999-01-27 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-01-28 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1999-01-27 0:00 ` Ada book help Stephane Barbey
1999-01-27 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
1999-01-27 0:00 ` Mike Silva
1999-01-28 0:00 ` Ada book help (on Amazon.com) Steve Whalen
1999-01-25 0:00 ` Ada book help Magnus Kempe
1999-01-26 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-01-27 0:00 ` Richard
1999-02-01 0:00 ` Jeff Iverson
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