From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,f096ebb5dcac664d X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!usenet-fr.net!gegeweb.org!aioe.org!nospam From: "John B. Matthews" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada in teaching (was: Ariane 5 Failure from 1996) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:36:57 -0400 Organization: The Wasteland Message-ID: References: <851f477d-c5a4-4c87-b930-4a47ba508579@h8g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> <4a5ce82c$0$32682$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ib4TTflHUauJidfWP/+Rjw.user.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.7.9 Cancel-Lock: sha1:xLNEg7eeTAMneBMjmmW3Mihqwn8= User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b3 (Intel Mac OS X) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:7057 Date: 2009-07-14T18:36:57-04:00 List-Id: In article <4a5ce82c$0$32682$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net>, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > John B. Matthews wrote: > > > I always though going from Pascal to Ada would have been easier. > > Which subset of Ada? Why, the Pascal subset, of course! :-) > Without exceptionally good explanations, I can't imagine full > Ada, with access discriminants, say, as a possible teaching > vehicle at all. Why use a subset at all? Surely the novice can write useful programs that use a library, even if that library depends on access discriminants for it's implementation. Using access discriminants for one's own self-referential data structures and iterators can be deferred to a second level course. > Java is probably thought to be closer to business; > at least I've heard teachers say so. It is, > in another sense, at least: sloppy base type systems > and hand made concurrency are a good basis for > continued support business. While Java's int, long, etc. only > require a little hubris to handle them properly, there are the > ubiquituous features of the same spirit, equally successful: > int, long, etc. in C and their integer overflows and buffer > overflows. > These will provide for vulnerability protection opportunities > and help establish international software companies :-) > Java has learned from this base type system, so it > moved the imperfections to object spaghetti. No? In version 1.5, Java added a generic form of compile-time type checking [1] and task oriented support for concurrent programming [2]. These are a significant improvement, but they are optional; with Ada, the features are "baked-in," so to speak. Java has always supported interface inheritance from a single Object; IIUC, the present Ada standard offers a similar approach [3]. > You should be teaching what everyone wants. > You should be teaching what everyone teaches. > You should be rushing towards a new paradigm > in teaching as soon as it is there. > Be part of the crowd. It's only tax payers' money. I'm sorry, I cannot support your candidacy for public office. :-) [1] [2] [3] -- John B. Matthews trashgod at gmail dot com