Student views on Ada

[weberwu@tfh-berlin.de (Prof_Weber-Wulff)]

A collection of student comments on Ada (We use Ada as the first language):

- A 3rd semester student commented that he has both C++ and Ada at home,
  but that he uses (Meridian) Ada when he wants to get something done
  fast - because when he finally gets it to compile it's usually right,
  as opposed to C++...

- A 7th semester student looking over the shoulder of a 2nd semester student
  doing something whizzy with the Meridian graphics packages: "I can't 
  believe you're doing that in Ada! I thought Ada was stupid and boring!"

- The students in our department have started a little newspaper (and
  asked for permission to do so, boy in my student days we just DID
  things like that!). The front page article was "ADA, oder was?", (Ada or
  what?) and included a pro and a contra position. The pro article felt
  that our insisting that Ada was too good a language to be left to the
  military was okay, and even went so far as to say that using the 
  language strengthens ones sense of responsibility - doing what you
  think is right despite what every one else says. The contra article
  felt that using Ada legitimizes the US American war machine, the technial
  aspects of the language have no relevance. The writer suspects that since
  the DoD issues the standard [little knowledge has he of Ada9X!] corrupt
  officials could misuse their power to unimaginably evil ends... and closes
  with the call to reject Ada thereby setting onesself against the desire
  for power and unreasonability... 

My comment to Meridian: I'm mad that they've stopped the student pricing 
for the DOS Ada. For 69 marks (when we ordered a class set) the students
got an LRM and a compiler, and they used them at home. What better 
advertising for the language and the company?!

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