> 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]