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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
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From:
"Beard, Frank" <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 31 Jul 2000 15:58:01 -0400
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"Beard, Frank" <[log in to unmask]>
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Well, not having been to a conventional bookstore since the
advent of Amazon.com, I would consider Amazon's sampling
to be a little larger and maybe more representative.

I went to amazon and did a subject search on Ada and it returned
285 hits, ranging from new to old Ada books, with an occasional
misfit.  I only traversed through the first 100, and I only noticed two
to be non-Ada programming language.  So, there appears to be a
fair amount of literature.

And yes, I know there are some benefits to being able to flip
through the book to see if you really want to buy it, so I must
rely on the author's/publisher's description and reader reviews.
And yes I know you have to know about Ada to know to search
for it.  So, in that respect novice programmers probably will not
find Ada unless they do a category search on Software Engineering
or computer languages.

Frank

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Feldman [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, July 31, 2000 12:32 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Taking a pulse of the Ada and Software Engineering
> communitie
>
> [said Rush]
> >
> > There are plenty of Ada books out there to support the present
> > Ada community.  You just have to order them.  What the Ada community
> > is losing out on is the opportunity to promote the language to new
> > programmers who go to the bookstore to "learn how to develop xyz
> > type application using Ada."  Where you see Ada books on the
> > shelf it's generally where there is a university teaching Ada or
> > using it in one or more of their classes.
>
> Well, yes and no. I don't think the Fairfax MicroCenter collection
> of Ada books has much to do with GW (which is many miles away) or
> George Mason (which does teach some Ada but not a lot). Same goes
> for Reiters, which carries a far bigger selection of Ada books
> than anyone at GW needs.
>
> I think it would be a useful contribution for people on this list
> to visit their local bookstores (the ones with big technical sections,
> anyway), and report back on the Ada "presence" there.
>
> I agree with Rush that there is, generally, enough variety in Ada
> books that a larger _quantity_ of distinct books isn't a pressing
> issue. For example, see
>
> http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada95books.html
>
> which is linked from the other Ada websites and covers just about
> all the Ada 95 books. I need to add a couple of new ones; I'll do
> that one day soon. David Botton also has an excellent book section
> at www.adapower.com.
>
> Team-ers: you can contribute to the book situation by writing brief
> reviews for these books! Some of the books on my list have no
> recent review attached to them. Some reviews are from earlier
> editions. Please visit the page and send me a brief review,
> in the form of the others, so I can paste it in to the page.
> Plain unformatted text please, NO attachments!
>
> The other thing about books is that all the online bookstores
> do seem to be carrying all (or most) of the Ada 95 books, in
> what seems to be current stock. Reviews posted on those sites
> would also be helpful! I say this not (only) as an author, but as
> SIGAda Education Chair - there are small things many of us can
> do to make the situation a little better.
> >
> > Rush Kester
> > charter member Team Ada
>
> Michael Feldman
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Michael B. Feldman -  chair, ACM SIGAda Education Working Group
> Professor, Department of Computer Science
> The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
> [log in to unmask] - 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-4875 (fax)
> http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> "A lie can go halfway around the world before the truth can
>  put its shoes on." -- Mark Twain
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit http://www.acm.org/sigada/education or http://www.adapower.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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