Re: Object Pascal vs Ada -- which is better for a hobbyist?

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

Dufr <dufriz@gmail.com> writes:

> Which is better for an amateur programmer, Object Pascal or Ada?

Ada, for all sorts of reasons.  Better module system, better type
system, better syntax, full-coverage rules for case statements and
aggregates, etc.  Also, non-technical reasons:  better availability of
compilers, more active user community, uniformity across platforms.

All that goes for hobbyists and professionals.

> My worry about Ada is that it will entail too much overhead in terms
> of learning, because of the strict rules, whereas programming in
> Object Pascal is said to be easier. Or, at least, this is what I have
> heard.  Is my understanding correct?

Strict rules do not make a programming language hard to learn.  Just the
opposite, in fact.  If you don't know the rules, the compiler tells you,
and you learn as you go along.  That can be frustrating, but for me it's
a lot less frustrating than debugging!

It is true that learning all of Ada is much harder than learning all of
Object Pascal.  But that's OK -- you don't have to learn all of Ada to
do useful stuff, and you certainly don't have to learn it all at once.
Ignore tasking unless you want to do concurrency, and even then ignore
rendezvous.  Learn how to raise exceptions, but not how to handle them.
Ignore all of the Annexes, except for parts of Annex A.  Ignore chapter 13.

And as others have said, learn it from a textbook or on-line tutorial.
Don't approach the Ada Reference Manual until you know Ada.
(One exception: for the predefined libraries, Annex A of the Ada RM
is fairly readable.)

- Bob