Good book for C++'er learning Ada
Man, these Ada books are expensive! But this was 1/2 of most others. The paperback cover is kinda flimsy, but it'll just make me look like a more experienced programmer as it gets doggeard '-)
I'm a long time C++'er but knew nothing about Ada, which 95% of my new job involves. So I needed something to bring me up to speed quickly. I find this book very readable and pretty well organized. The first few chapters teach you the 10% you'll use 90% of the time and the other 90%, if you need it, is covered in depth later in the book. I think those that don't like this book probably don't like Ada (but who does?) because I find this book great, Ada is just a tough language that you just can hack with like C++.
I'm very pleased with this "bargan" book and think it'll be the only Ada book I'll need to buy. Strongly recommend
OK, but not for beginners
Like the Ada language itself, I find this book wordy and repetitive, but complete. It really does seem to have full descriptions of all the language features. I'm not sure, because I have to flip to so many different sections to see one feature described, that I really don't know whether I found everything.This book reads like a standards document, designed by commitee. (If you're never read standards, imagine reading 'War and Peace' by selecting pages in random order.) In the bigger standards, any given component tends to make sense only when you've mastered all other system features, so you understand how that component fits the system as a whole. That means the learning curve includes a jump discontinuity, from zero up to where you've absorbed some critical mass of information. That's what this book is like. Yes, Ada is a complex language, so a truly brief description is impossible. A better writer knows, though, that brevity (to a point) improves clarity, and that the organization of content is at least as important as the content itself. The one real strength in this book is the many examples. They are sometimes over-long for the points they make, but seem to demonstrate most of the important language features. If you already know a few languages including at least one with object orientation, you should be able to hack a trail for yourself through this thicket of information - the author has not paved a clear path for you. If you are a beginning programmer, you're likely to have a hard time of it.
This is NOT visual Basic
This is not a begginers guide, or a "for Dummies" book either. You are not going to be spoon fed here. To get the most from this book you need to do a bit of poking around on the internet concerning the "Hello world" of Ada95, also the structure of Ada programs, interfaces, bodys, then jump in to this work. You will find all you need, but this is not an ARM (annotated reference manual). Be ready to jump around in the text. Use the included Aonix compiler, or the one that comes with Linux. Rememeber this is a small book covering a big subject.
very bad
An awful book. I could barely understand anything, as no examples were complete. The object oriented section was incomprehensible at all. I would recommend leaving this book aside and get a real Ada teaching book. ( )
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