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Sender:
"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
X-To:
"Crispen, Bob" <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 13 Sep 1999 10:20:16 -0400
Reply-To:
"Richard L. Conn" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
"Richard L. Conn" <[log in to unmask]>
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You raise a good point, Bob,

I gave a presentation in my last class on objects and classes
(it was an addition to the normal material in the text), and
I think the students got it by relating to the VB environment.
It helped a lot to point to an object on a form, point to its
properties (attributes), and change an attribute (watching the
object change in the process in some cases).

It is a key to not get lost in the language as opposed to the
ideas.

The "Objects and Classes" presentation is on my website as well.

----------------------------------
Richard Conn, ASE and PAL Manager
http://xenadu.home.mindspring.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Crispen, Bob
> Sent: Monday, September 13, 1999 9:21 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Two interesting approaches to job hunting and more
>
>
> > Richard L. Conn sez:
> >
> > No, they don't use GUI Builders.  Ada is Ada and VB is VB.  GUIs are a
> > part of VB, and they are an add-on to Ada.  "Hello world" in Ada is
> > still using Text_IO ... "Hello world" in VB is drawing a form that
> > contains
> > a button that launches another form (or message box) when pressed.  This
> > form or message box contains a graphic and the text of the message.
> > "Hello world" in Ada requires 5 lines of code (counting
> carriage returns),
> > while "Hello world" in VB requires the programmer to draw a picture and
> > write 1 line of code.
> >
> It's when they have to write that second line of code
> that we start to separate the sheep from the goats.
>
> > These are what I do on the first day in each class.  Who do you
> think gets
> > more excited?  ;-)
> >
> No doubt the VB folks, and with good reason.  The
> folks at Microsoft have worked hard to make the
> process of creating software at that level fun and
> easy, and they've kept all the mysterious syntax and
> number twiddling of the real GUI code well out of
> sight.
>
> And a good thing too.  Typing in mysterious numbers
> to build any sort of geometry is, imho, an unnatural
> act, at least until you get to the very advanced stages
> and need to know what those numbers mean and how
> they fit into algorithms.
>
> About the only quibble I have is over what percentage
> of the course's content is CS and what percentage
> MS.  When it comes to what most of us consider
> code, the IDEs pretty much leave you to your own
> resources, and that's the bit most of us consider to
> be code.
>
> Unless they learn the "real code" you'll (a very general
> "you'll" -- I know Conn's reputation and I know he's
> more aware of this than most) -- you'll have made the
> same mistake the Sophists did (if we're to believe their
> enemies).  The Sophists are alleged to have turned out
> students who could express themselves with supreme
> elegance, but who had nothing to say.
>
> Bob Crispen
> [log in to unmask]

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