ADA made me hate programming
in [ADA]
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From: Wilson on 1 Jul 2010 00:47 On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:23:37 -0400, mahdert <mahdert(a)gmail.com> wrote: > When I first started my undergraduate studies as a computer science > major, I was forced to use ADA in an introductory course.. Mind you I > was already familiar with C++ at that time..but after dealing with ADA > and compilet time errors for about a year, I decided to change my > major to mech eng.. > > Now, after many years, I started to revisit ADA and I seem to catch on > to it.. but I feel (i know) its mostly due to my own experience and > maturity level.. > > So, I have to ask your opinion.. DO you think that the push for > universities to use ADA is a big conspiracy among academicians to kill > the passion of comp. sci in young students who would like to become > software engineers???? I do not see any other reason why.. > -- Thank you for your comments. I found your them very interesting. (and thought provoking.) I was responsible for teaching Ada to beginning students over a period of about ten years. We used R&R Ada for the first course and Gnat for later courses. On the whole, at the end of the first course (one semester), the average student was writing correct, 3-400 line programs using up to 5 or 6 subprograms. Almost all of the programs were correct the first time they went through the compiler with no errors. Over the years I have taught the same course in assembler (back in the 1950s), various versions of Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Pascal, Algol, and PL/I. (As you might have guessed, I was arround for a long time and still loved teaching beginners.) Ada was by far and away the easiest language to teach and the students learnt the most. If Ada was so great, why did the school change to C++? Student demand. All the job openings wanted C++, not Ada. When all is said and done, schools ofter what students want. (Although one former student did tell lme that her employer found it almost impossible to change people who had started with C++ into Ada programers. Rather than insist on Ada experience, the employer changed all its programming to C++! Some days you can't win.) I wish all programming managers would develop your maturity. God knows, we need it. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news(a)netfront.net ---
From: anon on 1 Jul 2010 00:57 In <i0g4lk$qon$1(a)speranza.aioe.org>, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma(a)12000.org> writes: >On 6/29/2010 11:40 PM, anon(a)att.net wrote: > >> >> The big conspiracy among academicians is pushing C++ and other languages, >> were bad habits can become a cancer to the programmer/maintainers of any >> software package. > >I think the choice of CS teaching languages went something like this: > >PLI/SNOBOL -- the dark ages ? > >Fortran -- late 70's ? > >Pascal/Ada/Module2/ 80's. The golden age (algorithms+data >structures=programs) > >C/lisp 80's-early 90's ? > >C++ 90's - early 2000's ? > >Java late 90's/middle 2000's ? > >Python now ? > >HTML5/JavaScript -- 2010's and for the rest of the 21 century :) > > >--Nasser > > > > > > Your Timeline is a off a bit. Assembly -- From the Beginning .. To the Future Not pushed! After higher-level lang came around Cobol/Fortran/Algol/Lisp -- late 50s .. late 80s All were replace by C/C++ in the 80/90s Note: Ada designer have stated that Fortran was the "successful language" PLI -- 60s, programmers and companies rebeled, they prefer to use the specific language such as Fortran or Cobol instead of learning and using PLI. So, schools followed the companies and mostly stayed away from PLI. Pascal/Module2 -- Mid to late 70s ... mid 90s Pascal was design to teach programming Replace by C/C++ in 80/90s APL/B/BCPL -- from late 50s .. late 70s replaced with "C" aka newer version. C/C++/D -- from 74 .. Now. -- "D" is the newest version replaces C and C++ "C++" is wide spread in all classes. C/C++ slowly replace all other older lang "Cobol" and "Fortran" in clasees. Also, due to fact that these lang are based on "APL" it makes the set, one of the OLDEST lang around. This 50+ year lang set should of died a few years ago. Ada 83 .. 98 -- only taught in gov't sponsor classes. Teacher had to be certified in Ada before 98. After 98 -- problem is, not enough teachers that know Ada Languages that are for net and have little to no interest to main stream programers that want to deal with the native CPU. Java -- 90's .. now -- Sun's internet J-Code language that is somewhat secure and portable but altered to much for any lasting code. Only Web designers are into: HTML/JavaScript/Python These are just a passing though for the movement and will be replace by some kind GUI web lang. All three will be out the door by 2016.
From: Simon Wright on 1 Jul 2010 01:15 "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox(a)dmitry-kazakov.de> writes: > On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:54:10 +0000, Colin Paul Gloster wrote: > >> I am replying at 18:51:23 UTC on June 30th, 2010 to a post with the >> bogus header: >> Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:13:46 +0200 > > Hmm, the header is correct +0200 = +02:00 = 2h 0m = CEST (Central European > Summer Time) I think it's the "Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:13:46" he's complaining about!
From: Lucretia on 1 Jul 2010 08:58 On Jun 30, 9:36 am, tonyg <tonytheg...(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > > You should think yourself lucky we had three major languages (I won't > say taught) we were told to use our projects with > > 1) ML > 2) 68000 assembly > 3) Ada > > so most of us loved Ada Some of us loved m68k, especially on the Amiga :D Luke.
From: Colin Paul Gloster on 1 Jul 2010 09:11
On a true July 1st, 2010, Simon Wright sent: |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |""Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox(a)dmitry-kazakov.de> writes: | | | |> On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:54:10 +0000, Colin Paul Gloster wrote: | |> | |>> I am replying at 18:51:23 UTC on June 30th, 2010 to a post with the | |>> bogus header: | |>> Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:13:46 +0200 | |> | |> Hmm, the header is correct +0200 = +02:00 = 2h 0m = CEST (Central European| |> Summer Time) | | | |I think it's the "Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:13:46" he's complaining about!" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| Affirmative. Even in the C.E.S.T. timezone, July had not begun by the time Dmitry A. Kazakov posted. |