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 X-Google-Thread: 103376,8623fab5750cd6aa X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!news-stoc.telia.net!217.209.241.210.MISMATCH!news-stod.telia.net!telia.net!masternews.telia.net.!newsc.telia.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bj=F6rn_Persson?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4.1) Gecko/20031114 X-Accept-Language: sv, sv-se, sv-fi, en-gb, en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada in colleges and universities. References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID: Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 21:54:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.209.116.179 X-Complaints-To: abuse@telia.com X-Trace: newsc.telia.net 1086645277 217.209.116.179 (Mon, 07 Jun 2004 23:54:37 CEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 23:54:37 CEST Organization: Telia Internet Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1214 Date: 2004-06-07T21:54:37+00:00 List-Id: Peter C. Chapin wrote: > You are probably talking about a computer science program, true? If I translate the terms right, yes. > VTC=20 > offers computer engineering technology. It's more like computer=20 > engineering which, in turn, is more like electrical engineering than it= is=20 > like computer science. Our students get a lot of hardware courses,=20 > including basic (and not so basic) electronics. The programming we are = > preparing them for is low level stuff... device drivers, embedded syste= ms,=20 > specialized executives, etc. We tend to be relatively light on abstract= =20 > theory and heavy on the "practical" construction of systems. I see. Then I can understand if you don't teach them functional=20 programming. :-) > If I suggest=20 > that we reintroduce Ada in the curriculum I know the question will be: = > "How much Ada is being used, relative to C, in the application domains = we=20 > focus on?" How should I best answer a question like that? I think my best answer would be essentially what you already wrote in=20 your earlier post - that if you expect that your students will write=20 device drivers or embedded systems, then they will do enough programming = that they will need to know good programming practice. And while Ada is=20 better than C for teaching good programming practice, there's also a=20 point in comparing languages. I'd say you're not a good programmer until = you've tried at least two different languages, because only then will=20 you be able to see the weaknesses in a language. (And C and C++ don't=20 count as different languages in this case. Starting with C and=20 proceeding to C++ is more like starting with the basic parts of Ada and=20 introducing generics, tasks and tagged types later.) --=20 Bj=F6rn Persson jor ers @sv ge. b n_p son eri nu