Exercism.io needs Ada

Exercism.io needs Ada

[Bruce Axtens]

In case anyone is looking to encourage people to learn and use Ada, 
Exercism.io is a good place to learn. Lots of languages already but Ada 
isn't one of them. Become a maintainer or a mentor.

Maintainer: https://exercism.io/become-a-maintainer
Mentor: https://exercism.io/become-a-mentor#more-info

Bruce Axtens, vbnet maintainer and students of about 26 languages none 
of which are, sadly, Ada.

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Andreas ZEURCHER]

On Saturday, June 19, 2021 at 12:30:42 AM UTC-5, axtens wrote:
> In case anyone is looking to encourage people to learn and use Ada, 
> Exercism.io is a good place to learn. Lots of languages already but Ada 
> isn't one of them. Become a maintainer or a mentor. 
> 
> Maintainer: https://exercism.io/become-a-maintainer 
> Mentor: https://exercism.io/become-a-mentor#more-info 
> 
> Bruce Axtens, vbnet maintainer and students of about 26 languages none 
> of which are, sadly, Ada.

Since you are a maintainer on another language (Visual Basic .Net), what is the precise sequence of steps that one would need to perform to become the 1st maintainer of a new presence of Ada in Exercism.io?  I think that the 1st maintainer is specifically the person who bootstraps up a new language's presence on exercism.io, correct?  Apparently the sequence of steps might begin:
1) Practice being a newbie student of some arbitrary existing(-on-exercism.io) language's exercises to get the feel for how exercism.io is supposed to operate.
then
2) Contact another language's maintainer to be the 1st maintainer of Ada's fresh presence on exercism.io.

Are there more steps than that?  For example, must the 1st maintainer recruit a separate 1st mentor or must the 1st maintainer act also as 1st mentor?  Are those 2 steps perfectly stated or are they botched somehow?  Does some sort of vetting occur for the quality of a maintainer at time of volunteering that could cause the 1st maintainer to be rejected?  Does some sort of vetting occur for the desirability of a programming language occur up at exercism.io “corporate” that could cause Ada itself (independent of the 1st maintainer) to be rejected?  It seems that Ada and (AdaSubset-with-)SPARK would be 2 separate languages on exercism.io (otherwise it gets confusing), correct?  Why doesn't exercism.io have an overt webpage that answers these questions for how to bootstrap up a language's new presence on exercism.io (as this seems to be a separate & distinct topic to becoming the 2nd-or-subsequent-mentor that does have its own webpage explanation already)?

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Should not the first step be an evaluation of this site by an programming master?
Maybe this has been done; if so, please inform.

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Andreas ZEURCHER]

On Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 8:06:58 AM UTC-5, amado...@gmail.com wrote:
> Should not the first step be an evaluation of this site by an programming master? 
> Maybe this has been done; if so, please inform.

Define programming master in a nonAda language (and then state why a programming master in a nonAda language has any jurisdiction in Ada or in Ada's community).  Or did you mean that an Ada programming master would evaluate whether a nonAda language's presence on exercism.io?  (I'm not sure that an Ada programming master would be qualified to evaluate much depth in a nonAda language's presence on exercism.io:  what might be a pox-on-all-all-their-houses condemnation for another language by the high standards of an Ada-centric viewpoint might actually be stratospheric-achievement very very very best practices by that other nonAda language's experts, simply by the inferiority of the expressivity of that other nonAda language.)  Would exercism.io's exemplary (or defective) precedent in another language indicate that the same outcome would occur with Ada or that such similarity of outcome would even be likely, as opposed to just luck of the draw of the cards off of the stack in life's casino?  To me, it seems that any Ada presence in any programming forum/medium is highly dependent on the activism of the Ada participants, not the activism of participants in nonAda languages.  For example, exercises in other languages might not be able to be meaningfully borrowed verbatim-in-translation due to perhaps not highlighting good thoughts in Ada to show off Ada's special sauce (e.g., narrowly-declared strong subtyping; build-time swapping in different child packages for same-named identifiers to port to different-OS or different-hardware platforms).

I am fairly certain that in exercism.io's worldview, each maintainer and/or each mentor is by definition a programming master for that language, or is expected to mature quickly into one via the daily grind of the doing.  Perhaps our ambassador, Bruce Axtens, can illuminate that.  For example, is Bruce Axtens a programming master of Visual Basic .NET?  And does Bruce Axtens' invitation imply that the evaluation is already implicitly accomplished?

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Marius Amado-Alves]

> > Should not the first step be an evaluation of this site by an programming master? 
> > Maybe this has been done; if so, please inform.
> Define programming master in a nonAda language...

I'm not sure I follow. Sorry if I was not clear. My focus was on an evaluation of the quality of the site overall. By some recognized authority. "Programming master" were just the words that come to mind to caracterize an authority in this case.

Again, maybe there is such an evaluation. In which case, please inform. There are many sites on everything. We cannot track them all.

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Andreas ZEURCHER]

On Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 3:40:46 PM UTC-5, amado...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Should not the first step be an evaluation of this site by an programming master? 
> > > Maybe this has been done; if so, please inform.
> > Define programming master in a nonAda language... 
> 
> I'm not sure I follow. Sorry if I was not clear. My focus was on an evaluation of the quality of the site overall. By some recognized authority.

Which certification agency evaluates such websites?  And what is that certification agency's rating of c.l.a?  Are ourselves passing the test with sufficient merit?

I claim that each Ada person here recognizes themselves as such an authority by having eyes and a brain.

> "Programming master" were just the words that come to mind to caracterize an authority in this case. 
>
> Again, maybe there is such an evaluation. In which case, please inform. There are many sites on everything. We cannot track them all.

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Marius Amado-Alves]

No "certification agency". An authority, someone that the community trusts. Not necessarily an Adaist. From the top of my head, Kasakov, Rosen, Botton, Wheeler, Knuth, Wirth, even Kernighan, Ritchie, Linus I guess (examples of master level, not of availability unfortunately).

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Andreas ZEURCHER]

On Wednesday, June 30, 2021 at 12:11:51 PM UTC-5, amado...@gmail.com wrote:
> No "certification agency". An authority, someone that the community trusts. Not necessarily an Adaist. From the top of my head, Kasakov, Rosen, Botton, Wheeler, Knuth, Wirth, even Kernighan, Ritchie, Linus I guess (examples of master level, not of availability unfortunately).

If I were compiling such a list, I think I would put Randy Brukhardt on the list too.  Conversely, I am more of the opinion that any student of a topic knows when the pedagogy of that topic is exemplary versus defective, as the proof of the pudding is in the tasting with one's own tongue.

Re: Exercism.io needs Ada

[Marius Amado-Alves]

> > No "certification agency". An authority, someone that the community trusts. Not necessarily an Adaist. From the top of my head, Kasakov, Rosen, Botton...
> If I were compiling such a list, I think I would put Randy Brukhardt on the list too. Conversely, I am more of the opinion that any student of a topic knows when the pedagogy of that topic is exemplary versus defective, as the proof of the pudding is in the tasting with one's own tongue.

Agreed on both points.