Re: How Would a Hobbyist Learn Ada?

[Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk>]

Ludovic Brenta asked:

> How about others? Were you a hobbyist when you learned Ada? Did many
> people attend formal training?

Sometime in 1990-93 I found a Swedish book on Ada 87 at the library.
I read it more or less cover-to-cover and was very impressed.  (At
that time I was using Borland Pascal.)  I spent some time trying to
find an Ada compiler without any luck. - Until the autumn 1994, where
I found both GNAT, the draft Ada 95 reference manual and
comp.lang.ada.  Since January 1995 I've mostly been using Ada.  At
that time I was a graduate student in physics.

All my data analysis software for my PhD project was written in Ada,
and when I continued in research I was allowed to continue using Ada.

Since then I've spent two years teaching software engineering;
including both Ada and a bit of SPARK.

Right now I'm an analyst in the portfolio management division of a
large bank. - And I still get to use Ada, but unfortunately not only
Ada.

So yes, I was a hobbyist when I learned Ada.

And no, I never attended formal training (except as the teacher).  I
started out with the ARM and added some textbooks later on.

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
"constructive ambiguity"