From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a6b:6315:: with SMTP id p21-v6mr9525273iog.43.1530472795211; Sun, 01 Jul 2018 12:19:55 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:aca:f495:: with SMTP id s143-v6mr701200oih.7.1530472795055; Sun, 01 Jul 2018 12:19:55 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.uzoreto.com!feeder.erje.net!2.us.feeder.erje.net!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder-in1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!u78-v6no2463171itb.0!news-out.google.com!z3-v6ni1963iti.0!nntp.google.com!u78-v6no2463165itb.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2018 12:19:54 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <2111211480.552157697.052950.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=47.185.195.62; posting-account=zwxLlwoAAAChLBU7oraRzNDnqQYkYbpo NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.185.195.62 References: <856189aa-fa00-4960-929e-174f352310ad@googlegroups.com> <87351e85-0a06-4bb3-9a04-0f75bb635aad@googlegroups.com> <2111211480.552157697.052950.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Teaching C/C++ from Ada perspective? From: "Dan'l Miller" Injection-Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2018 19:19:55 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:53493 Date: 2018-07-01T12:19:54-07:00 List-Id: On Sunday, July 1, 2018 at 12:08:57 PM UTC-5, Luke A. Guest wrote: > wrote: > > Dear all, > >=20 > > Thank you very much for your replies. Perhaps I should think twice befo= re > > accepting this teaching offer. Once you go Ada it is hard to think of > > other languages that are not as good as Ada! >=20 > Maybe you should teach Ada with c/c++ shown as counter examples? This! This from Luke! My Fortran77 class was taught this way as a series of anecdotes: embarrass= ment-eye-roll anti-Pascal-in-translation. It was my first programming clas= s Pascal and Fortran77. Fortran was taught by lambasting Fortran77-per-se,= showing instead how to import Pascal ideas into Fortran. 2/3rds of the cl= ass was Pascal to teach how to do things correctly. 1/6th of the class was= taught as: don't ever do this legal-Fortran77 language construct in Fortr= an77 programs. 1/6th of the class was taught as: here is how to write the= Pascal concept in analogous good Fortran77. And practically all of Fortra= n66 was condemned wholesale. The counterexamples can take 3 forms: 1) Look at what a disaster this is was C++ historically up to C++2003, part= ially mitigated nowadays. 2) Look at how incrementally better C++{11,14,17,20} & their standard libra= ries are than C++{cfront/ARM/C++1990, C++1998, C++2003}. 3) Look via the aforementioned Adaesque library that I the professor whippe= d up at how C++ as standardized is really just a bunch of half-baked primit= ives to write a stronger closer-to-fully-baked library. I almost think that modern C++ and even features like restricted keyword in= C99 are more to drive consultants' & library-writers' businesses than to b= e a well-designed language. The reason that C++ has half-baked features mi= ght actually be to beget market demand for more-fully-baked C++ libraries t= han the raw language provides. And heaven help the poor employee at an ent= erprise that doesn't cultivate its own roll-your-own/harvest-the-web to arr= ive at a set of more-fully-baked set of libraries. (My own r=C3=A9sum=C3= =A9 reads like: wrote libraries to back-fill all the major gaps in C++ at = this employer, and oh did much the same a little differently at that employ= er, and yet again at the next employer but this time extended from a prior = open-source basis.)