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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,442a61fa28886220 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-18 12:33:47 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsmi-us.news.garr.it!NewsITBone-GARR!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!not-for-mail From: "Luke A. Guest" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada for a programming newb. Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 20:33:45 +0100 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: abyss2.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1063913625 1139 62.49.62.197 (18 Sep 2003 19:33:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 19:33:45 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Pan/0.13.4 (She had eyes like strange sins.) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42664 Date: 2003-09-18T20:33:45+01:00 List-Id: On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 10:31:46 -0700, Isaac Gouy wrote: > Kyle Root wrote >> I was wondering if Ada would be suitable for me. > > Ada has many excellent qualities. > IMHO a smaller language is a better tool for learning about > programming. I disagree. A lot of people have learnt Pascal first, I think that is a mistake because you get to a point where you are limited by the language. Ada will give the beginner 1) an excellent introduction to developing functional code that is easy to read/write and is just nice & 2) will also provide a language that will not piss you off because it won't do what you want. I learned Basic/C/m68k Assembly/C++/Pascal/Ada9X and have dabbled in other languages since. I didn't like Pascal too much, but Ada is much nicer; so many features that help rather than hinder. > Neither Ada nor Oberon-2 will help you to learn about functional > programming. I don't have any personal experience with Scheme but > there are several excellent online text books and the Dr Scheme is > reputed to be excellent. At some point I'd recommend you take a look > at Clean or Haskell to broaden you're ideas about what a programming > language can be like. Forget about about functional/logic programming languages, it's generally really strange people who *get* these. They're too odd - i.e. mathematical/formal, which isn't as natural as "normal" programming languages. >> There doesn't seem to be as much documentation > Always try to find language books through the local library - often > they can get them through inter-library loans from other libraries. I have Jan Skansholm's book on Ada9X, there is the reference manual online (www.adapower.com ??) Luke.