At 07:54 AM 12/3/1999 , Currie Colket wrote:
>Rick:
>
> > What's interesting is that the range is so wide.
> > While I'm observing a 50% failure rate, I also have
> > students with a current grade of 120% (I offer extra
> > credit exercises, and some do them all).  They are
> > all over the place on their grades.
> >
> > I haven't seen any arguments to convince me that VB
> > is not right for this climate or the need to make
> > learning fun is not justified.  Both work effectively.
> >

This whole discussion does not say much for us Ada advocates.  It is very
difficult to sell Ada when the keeper of the Ada repository truly believes
it is not the right language to teach, because the tools are not up to his
standards.

Not only that, but it is difficult to argue that Ada is the most portable
language, since an easy comeback is "What language is used for the
compiler?".  The Intermetrics front end is in C.  The GNAT back end is in
C.  "Why?"  Portability.

I went to the SIGAda conference, and happened to notice that there was a
Java tutorial!  Does anyone think that an Ada tutorial would be accepted at
a Java conference?

This is a great discussion, and I hope products (like Claw, a copy of which
I hope is being provided to Rick) can be created (like Claw, written in
Ada) to eventually make Rick (and the many, many others who share his
opinion of Ada tools) change his (their) mind.

Roger Racine