Re: Ada: A beginners experience

[blakemichael073@gmail.com]

On Saturday, July 14, 2018 at 11:36:51 AM UTC+8, Paul Rubin wrote:
> blakemichael073@gmail.com writes:
> >  I have watched the thread on "Why isn't Ada more popular" and thought
> > that I would give my perspective. Trying to learn to use Ada without
> > the assistance of someone experienced is hard.
> 
> This won't be a popular viewpoint here but IMHO Ada isn't a great choice
> as a first language.  It's designed to help deal with the problems of
> writing and maintaining very large code bases.  But there is a lot of
> overhead in the features it supplies for that.
> 
> If you want to start playing with microcontrollers with minimal fuss, I
> suggest getting a CircuitPython board, plugging it into your PC and
> playing with it for a while.  This should be a good one to start with:
> 
>    https://www.adafruit.com/product/3727
> 
> There are lots of other models too:
> 
>   https://www.adafruit.com/category/957
> 
> Worry about Ada once you're more concerned about large-scale
> engineering, performance, etc.  Start out with something simple for
> playing around with, and by the time you hit its limits, you'll have
> enough experience that Ada will make more sense to you than it currently
> does.

This is the approach that I will most likely end up following, there is simply more learning material available for other languages aimed at my level. 
It is an odd strategy for Ada itself though, essentially hoping that programmers migrate to your product for it's features once they have learnt the basics of their trade. Many people will try to add the features to the product that they are familiar with.

Mike Blake