Re: Student views on Ada

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

Fred McCall (merlin@annwfn.com) wrote:
: In <34kh42$le5@sun24.tfh-berlin.de> weberwu@tfh-berlin.de I wrote:

: >
: >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++...

: This seems indicative of two things.  One, it supports the 'first
: language preference' theory; i.e., whatever someone had as a first
: language is the one they will think is best.

This particular student had FORTRAN as a first language, he had 4 years
programming experience before coming to us to get a degree.

:  I don't fit that, 

I don't either, but I never really understood the first languages I
programmed in. Pascal was the first language I understood, which I do
feel contributed to my difficulties in learning Lisp ;-)

: it would
: appear to me that learning Ada first may have taught this individual
: some 'bad habits' that have led him to rely on the compiler to check
: things for him tht he should be aware of himself.  I've seen this happen
: frequently when Pascal programmers are first learning C.

Not necessarily. Typos are not bad habits per se, but when a language 
permits minimal difference (== instead of =) to have a valid syntax, you
can get into problems very easily. I also believe that one can easily get
into <insert language here>-mode and make careless mistakes in one language
that would not be made in another. One gets so used to using integer types
for everything and suddenly one is comparing apple sizes and orange weights.

: >- 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!"

: One would think that a 7th semester student would be aware that one can
: do anything in any language, given sufficient library support (like the
: Meridian graphics package). 

I wish... honestly, some things get so set in peoples minds, they refuse to
see things in a different light. I've had colleagues sniff their noses at
Logo as a "children's language", not realizing that it is possible to
do much, much more than just turtle graphics in it.

: >- The students in our department have started a little newspaper (and
[long political stuff deleted]

: Both positions seem to be more oriented toward political justifications
: (about the evil American war machine) than they are toward real
: technical superiority as a justification.  I'd consider neither
: particularly valid.

Of course! But they're thinking about it and *writing* [at times it seems
we need to use brute force to get them to write complete sentences].
We don't teach Ada because it is "superior" - I honestly don't think
that one can construct a partial order of languages! But it lets us
teach the things we think are important without making us waste time
explaining intricate bits of syntax.

--
Debora Weber-Wulff, Professorin fuer Softwaretechnik und Programmiersprachen
snail: Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, FB Informatik, 
              Luxemburgerstr. 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany
email: weberwu@tfh-berlin.de            http://sun24.tfh-berlin.de:8000/dww/