Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!xanth!ukma!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!umn-cs!zuhn From: zuhn@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (david d [zoo] zuhn) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Learning Ada Message-ID: <15126@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> Date: 8 Aug 89 21:18:25 GMT References: <2550@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> <6205@hubcap.clemson.edu> <5595@ficc.uu.net> Reply-To: zuhn@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (david d [zoo] zuhn) Organization: CSci Dept., University of Minnesota, Mpls. Lines: 54 In article <5595@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <6205@hubcap.clemson.edu>, billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,) writes: >> OK; let's imagine. Student gets syntax error. [...] Student >> shows the program to the local Consultant [who] points out >> the obvious error. > >Ever been a consultant at a university comp center? I have. The next >stage, if the student is working in Fortran, C, or some other production >language (ADA wasn't around back then), is... I currently am a consultant in a CS lab situation.. > Student comes back in 10 minutes with the same error. >or... > Consultant spends 10 minutes explaining error to student, and > maybe fails. Meanwhile 6 other students get tired of waiting... except that 4 of those 6 students are having the same problem, so your 5-10 minute explanation isn't going to just one person, if you understand what everyone else is gong through. >If the student is programming in Pascal, they are much more likely to >understand the error. I disagree there. Obvious syntax errors are obvious syntax errors. Ada is better for students, because many problems I encounter are people who cannot quite remember when to use 'var' in a paramater declaration. 'in' and 'out' are very obvious. >ADA is considerably more complex than Fortran or C. and any course which introduces a language doesn't make full use of that language. ever see an intro to c course that make use of doubly linked lists of pointers to function which return a pointer to another function? I haven't? But I've used such twisted arrangements. My first HLL was pascal, and most of my programming has been done in pascal. I was thrust into doing an ada assignment, and I did the whole thing in about three hours, without any problems at all. I'd much rather have to deal with students learning Ada than students learning Pascal. It just seems a little less arbitrary to beginners, unlike most of the Pascal I/O support. >-- >Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. >Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now >Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence >Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading" David D "Zoo" Zuhn // University of Minnesota \\ Twin Cities Computer Science Systems Consultant, EE/CS 4-204 zuhn@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu, zuhn@umn-cs.UUCP, ..rutgers!umn-cs!zuhn