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 18:44:59 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Carter Organization: jrcarter commercial-at acm [period | full stop] org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada for a programming newb. References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 01:44:58 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.184.8.149 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net 1063935898 63.184.8.149 (Thu, 18 Sep 2003 18:44:58 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 18:44:58 PDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42673 Date: 2003-09-19T01:44:58+00:00 List-Id: Luke A. Guest wrote: > 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. In a controlled experiment at West Point, Ada was shown to be a better 1st language than Pascal. Pascal was a pretty good language for its intended use (teaching programming basics) and its time (c. 1970, same as C, which is not nearly as well designed). Nowadays, Ada is a better language. -- Jeff Carter "If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." Monty Python's the Meaning of Life 56