JOHN:   Nice "ad" for Ada (&/or AdaCore) you posted to the 
SIGCSE-Members email list!   Good work.   -hh

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John McCormick wrote:

> Penny,
>
> Check out the free Ada compiler available through AdaCore's GNAT 
> Academic Program (GAP) at http://www.adacore.com/home/academia/.  This 
> compiler includes an expert system to tailor the error messages 
> produced.  They collected several years worth of novice programmer 
> errors from those of us using Ada in the beginning courses.  I have 
> not seen anything come close to this compiler in producing meaningful 
> error messages for novices.   The students coming into my Ada based 
> data structures course from the Java world are amazed that the 
> compiler "actually tells me what is wrong."
>
> John
>
> At 10:36 AM 3/30/2006 -0500, Penny Anderson wrote:
>
>> I'm interested in the issue of producing compiler error messages that
>> are informative to the novice programmer.
>>
>> Can anyone point me to an IDE or compiler that tries to produce such
>> messages, or to any research aimed at doing this?  I'm interested in
>> any language at all, but especially Java.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Penny
>
>
>
>
> John W. McCormick                [log in to unmask]
> Computer Science Department
> University of Northern Iowa        voice (319) 273-6056
> Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507       fax (319) 273-7123
> http://www.cs.uni.edu/~mccormic/
>