From: BUSHMAN@MITECMAIL.CCSCNET.AF.MIL
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Advise to Programmer Wannabee (was #299)
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:27:00 GMT
Organization: The Internet

In article <1992Oct1.105159.8145@brt.deakin.edu.au), someone (they didn't sign
message) misunderstood my advise to the accountant (Scott Kramer) who wanted
to learn programming. (Scott, are you listening?) To quote:
 
    (my original advise)
    > As I stated in the last paragraph, Ada is a very large language.  For
    > someone wanting to get some programming experience, as your first
    > language to tackle, Ada would be much harder to learn than others, such
    > as COBOL.
    (their response)
    > This sounds like nonsense to me.  You are surely better off starting
    > with a modern language first, rather than unlearning the skills of an
    > obsolete one later.
 
I agree. It would be much better to learn the newer techniques first.
However, Ada IS a large language.  Yes, you can learn the basics of Ada and
write some programs.  But let's put this back in perspective.  The original
question was (from #299, Scott Kramer):
 
    > In addition, he told me I should learn Ada.
    (Some deletion.)
    > Can anyone tell me about Ada and if it would benefit me in the long run
    > or what?
 
Now we both know that Ada is not the best language to use for accounting
programs.  COBOL would be much better for this.  But it too (at least the
newer versions) are also big.  But he would at least be learning the
language that he will find out in the field once he graduates from Purdue
University.  From Scott's original message, it didn't really sound to me that
he wanted to become a programmer.  I got the impression that he wanted to be
an accountant that knew some programming also.  And this is a good idea.  As
I stated in my original response, if he finds that he likes programming
and wants to learn more, then move on to newer languages, like Ada, and the
newer techniques.
 
Don't get me wrong, you could write some very good accounting programs in
Ada. Ada can do it. But is anybody out there actually doing this? I think
not. They are using things like COBOL. Why? Because COBOL was designed for
this purpose.  It does stand for COmmon Business Oriented Language, or did
they change it?  I mean, it was designed for things like accounting.
 
I also agree that COBOL is an old language and that it uses some old ideas.
But have you looked at the latest versions?  They have released (or
getting ready to release) things like Object Oriented COBOL, CASE Tools for
COBOL, etc. COBOL is evolving. It is not the old show it used to be in the
70's.
 
Let's put things back into perspective, quit this bickering, and go on with
our business.  We are all professionals here.  Ada is a good language, some
would even say that is a great language, but it is not the language to end
all languages.  It too has some "quarks".  All languages do.  There are
applications out there that are better solved by languages other than Ada.
 
 
Regards,                          |  All opinions expressed herein
Kevin (Gonzo) Bushman             |  are my own.  Nobody else can
bushman@mitecmail.ccscnet.af.mil  |  can claim them.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada