Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[Robert Dewar]

While I agree one should not overemphasize the role of a particular language
as an initial teaching language in the first programming course, one should
also not make the mistake of underestimating the influence of the particular
language chosen.

I was amazed at the time by the reaction in the US to EWD's letter on
"gotos considered harmful". I am sure that EWD did not think he was saying
something profound or new, because anyone who was exposed to Algol-60 at
the time knew perfectly well that it was obvious that the use of gotos 
should be minimized.

The storm that it caused in the US was I think directly related to the 
comparative prevalence of FORTRAN as a first teaching language, and to 
typical programmers trained in FORTRAN, the idea of not using gotos was
indeed novel, as was (much more importantly) the notion of microstructure
in programs, which was the underlying issue.

Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[Robert I. Eachus]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Jul28233335@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com
   (Gregory Aharonian) writes (lots of drivel deleted:

   >   Also with little correlation with the competitive universities
   > is the universities ARPA and AJPO are funding with their
   > educational Ada grants, at least for the 1992 BAA:

   >   East Tennessee State, Florida Agricultural, Illinois Institute,
   > Kutztown U., U. of Scranton, West Virgina U., U. of Alabama,
   > Central Mich.U., Clemson, Colorado State, U. of Conn., Univ. of
   > Dayton, Florida Inst. Tech., George Washington U., U. of Houston
   > - Clear Lake, U. of New Mexico, U. of North Dakota, RPI,
   > Shippensburg U., Southeastern Louisiana U., and Wright State
   > University.

       But there is a large correlation between this list and the list
   of well respected schools in the areas where Ada is heavily used.
   I could argue that RPI, where I got my Master's should be on the
   most competitive schools list, but it certainly is among the top
   ten engineering schools, as probably are Clemson and IIT.  UHCL and
   FIT have close ties to NASA and are located near to major NASA
   facilities, etc.  (I'll let Mike sing the praises of GWU if he
   feels it is necessary.)

       Yes, I would like to see CMU, MIT, or one of the Ivy League
   Schools on the list of schools using Ada.  However, there is a
   problem with the mindset which says that top schools should educate
   students, not train them.  RPI and WPI, on the other hand, prefer
   to have their graduates prepared for the "real world."

--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[Bob Crispen]

>1)  BEST UNIVERSITIES DON'T USE ADA
>       Given that it is impossible to define what are the best universities,

One might have stopped there.  Your list misses, inter alia, Georgia
Tech, U. of Michigan, University of Central Florida...

>John Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Pomona, Princeton, Rice, Stanford,

Now at *that* I take great umbrage.  You remind me of the time my
roommate received a letter addressed to him at "John Hawkins College".
For shame, Greg!

Bob Crispen
JHU '68

Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!f]

In <SRCTRAN.93Jul28233335@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharoni
an) writes:


->    From time to time there have been lists posted of which universities are
->teaching Ada in the undergraduate curricula, as well as announcements from
->the Ada9X program office confirming these lists of Ada use, and plans by
->the Ada9X office to foster Ada use through academic acceptance. The hope is
->that by having Ada taught early on in the undergraduate career, that somehow
->this will translate into greater acceptance of Ada in the future.
-> 
->    Since no one questions the relevance of these lists and strategies, I
->will offer three reasons why I believe this strategy of Ada academic use will
->have little to no impact on the acceptance of Ada anywhere:
-> 
->		1)  Best universities don't use Ada
->		2)  Pascal taught but not used
->		3)  Who remembers anything from freshman days?
-> 
->    Thus I suggest that the Ada9X office rethink its Ada academic strategy,
->because it could be that a lot of good effort will be to no avail.  What is
->needed first is detailed demographics of academic and industry programming
->language use to see where to best invest Ada9X dollars to have the greatest
->impact on increasing Ada acceptance.
-> 
Perfectly right, but ...

->1)  BEST UNIVERSITIES DON'T USE ADA

There is no must for any university to teach Ada. Any computer science
student should be able to learn Ada in a short amount of time. To do
this it is necessary to learn how to program in general, not in any
special language.

PS: I do not expect the *best* students from *best* universities to
    spend their lives sitting in front of a computer.

[... stuff deleted ...]
-> 
->2)  PASCAL TAUGHT BUT NOT USED
[... stuff deleted ...]
->[... deleted ...] Keep in mind that C/C++, which is barely
->formally taught - is used, has tools, has jobs 50/1 to 100/1 more than both
->Pascal and Ada.
   
Perfectly right, but this language is especially used to produce shit.
Dont`t forget: Programming and Computer Science are not the same thing.
               In general you also do not expect people, who are able
	       to communicate in some language to earn the nobel price
	       in literature.

->	These simple number counts of Ada use are meaningless.  One has to
->examine the influence of the universities on the academic and industrial
->world to be assess significance.  To date, unfortunately, the successes of
->Ada are dubious.
-> 
Right (no but).

->3)  WHO REMEMBERS ANYTHING FROM FRESHMAN DAYS?
[... stuff deleted ...]

This is the point! You *must* teach generic information. A programming
language is only one medium to do so (and, of course some of them are
better mediums, like e.g. Ada). If you teach your students special
programming languages for special machines, without the general how and
why, forget about them.

->	Most knowledge that one manages to retain from academic days is
->what is learned in the junior and senior years of undergraduate life, and
->first two years of graduate school (where your general advanced education
->occurs).  Too many of us drank too much beer and ate too many salted bar
->snacks freshmen and sophmore years to remember much of anything :-)
->Thus freshman and sophmore use of Ada is of questionable long term value,
->when other languages are used in junior and senior courses and projects.
-> 
A definite: NO!
-> 
->-- 
->**************************************************************************
-> Greg Aharonian
-> Source Translation & Optimization
-> P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

-- jubo
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Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[Kenneth Anderson]

In comp.lang.ada you write:

>Most universities have the needs of the real world entirely wrong.
>They turn out way too many computer scientists and not enough soft-
>ware engineers.  I think of this as the same as turning out too many
>physicists and not enought engineers.

I agree entirely.

>Do any schools even offer an undergrad program in software engineer-
>ing?

University of California, Irvine has (what I consider) an intense
undergrad software engineering program.

>Brad

Ken

Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[Debora Weber-Wulff]

Now Greg, let's think a bit clearer about the choice of first-year 
CS language. It would, of course, be nice  to teach a language
that would be useful throughout the time spent at university and
would be beneficial as a job-getter. With the PAL getting in
gear the chances of finding good stuff to use in upper level
courses have increased. [When I showed the PAL list to my
colleagues they were quite impressed -  now we have to go buy
a new disk to put the stuff on, but whatever :-)]

One of the reasons we should be choosing a first language is
to pick one which will shape the way in which these young
persons think. It is sort of a mother tongue that we are teaching.
[I have seen people program FORTRAN in Pascal, BASIC in Pascal,
Pascal in C - the first language you learn often seems to you
to be the *right* way to do things.]
So because we think that a disciplined approach to creating
software is a GOOD THING, we feel that the students should be
learning a language like Ada that *won't let them hack*.

Now Ada's not perfect, but now that I know the corners to avoid
for beginners (FIXED!) I can see that it a quite good teaching
*and* a very good production language. I used to be an Ada-Hater
(brought on, I believe by C.A.R. Hoare [That's *Tony*, not
*Charles*, Ted!] and his Turing lecture), but I do like it now.

And since I just tell my students: We are doing programming in an
object-based manner, the majority are quite content to learn. I
even had a C hacker come up to me at the end of the term and say
"Gee, Ada's a pretty neat language, even if it is such a pain in
the *censored* to type!"

As you note, Greg, we forget the *details* of what we learn in the
first few years of college. But the *way of thinking*, the 
programming habits that are cultivated in those years will stay
around and influence all of our future work!  

The reason for the "best" schools not using Ada, IMHO, is that they
are research-oriented (i.e. getting external funding by hacking
something for industry) and thus do not give thought to didactical
reasons for anything. The schools you mentioned using Ada are indeed
*teaching* schools, dedicated to actually teaching people 
instead of letting them sink-or-swim.



-- 
Debora Weber-Wulff, Professorin fuer Softwaretechnik 
snail: Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, FB Informatik, 
       Luxemburgerstr. 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany
email: dww@informatik.tfh-berlin.d400.de 

Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X

[Brad Wallet]

Most universities have the needs of the real world entirely wrong.
They turn out way too many computer scientists and not enough soft-
ware engineers.  I think of this as the same as turning out too many
physicists and not enought engineers.

Do any schools even offer an undergrad program in software engineer-
ing?

Computer scientist should use C; software engineers should use Ada.
But, what percentage of those working in the computer industry are
designing os's and compilers?

Brad