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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.uzoreto.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Bill Findlay Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada: A beginners experience Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2018 23:44:04 +0100 Organization: none Message-ID: <0001HW.20FC05B4019F60EC700007BBE2CF@news.individual.net> References: <1d3743b1-1a36-429d-92c7-9ae0e7c16e63@googlegroups.com> <87fu0m7ak0.fsf@nightsong.com> <6febe5d6-0339-4da5-afe5-9af4e2255597@googlegroups.com> Reply-To: findlaybill@blueyonder.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net FfjQjcKJeua/VDeUi2xwwQBdEETbaoQ7ssgMCXaPqqvEdbJNXH X-Orig-Path: not-for-mail Cancel-Lock: sha1:17uIDsBUrWZ6SS5dCPQjFm343tY= User-Agent: Hogwasher/5.19 Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:53831 Date: 2018-07-15T23:44:04+01:00 List-Id: On 14 Jul 2018, Jere wrote (in article<6febe5d6-0339-4da5-afe5-9af4e2255597@googlegroups.com>): > On Friday, July 13, 2018 at 11:36:51 PM UTC-4, Paul Rubin wrote: > > This won't be a popular viewpoint here but IMHO Ada isn't a great choice > > as a first language. [...] > > [...] The type system (the big draw for me to Ada) is actually very streamlined. [...] > > None of this is beginner friendly though obviously. I disagree very strongly with the idea that Ada is not a good beginners language, and I do so as a result of the experience of introducing an Ada-based CS1 course in 1996. Most of its advanced features will never arise in such a course, and the good design of Ada means that beginners are very unlikely to stumble upon them by mistake. The Ada course replaced one based on Pascal, and the improvement in outcomes was clear at an early stage. Ada is easier for beginners than Pascal, because its syntax and semantics are more consistent. In fact, it's just amuch better language. It was interesting to stand in the lab and watch Ada-based and Pascal-based beginners working side by side. One day, about week 6 of term, the Ada studentshad nearly all successfully written a program that 2-D animated balls bouncing around in a box. The Pascalstudents were grappling, mostly unsuccessfully, with a trivial text-based read-process-output loop. -- Bill Findlay