Re: Ada: A beginners experience

[Bill Findlay <findlaybill@blueyonder.co.uk>]

> On Sunday, July 15, 2018 at 5:44:06 PM UTC-5, Bill Findlay wrote:
> >
> > 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.

That was remarkably mangled.

-- 
Bill Findlay