Ada FAQ: Learning Ada
Magnus Kempe
Archive-name: computer-lang/Ada/learning
Comp-lang-ada-archive-name: learning
Comp-edu-archive-name: learning-Ada
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 31 May 1996
Last-posted: 22 April 1996
Learning Ada
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Recent changes to this FAQ are listed in the first section after the table
of contents. This document is under explicit copyright.
Introduction
This is a list of resources to learn Ada. This list includes interactive
tutorials, books, source code collections, etc.
Ada is an advanced, modern programming language, designed and standardized
to support and strongly encourage widely recognized software engineering
principles: reliability, portability, modularity, reusability, programming
as a human activity, efficiency, maintainability, information hiding,
abstract data types, genericity, concurrent programming, object-oriented
programming, etc.
All validated Ada compilers (i.e. a huge majority of the commercial Ada
compilers) have passed a controlled validation process using an extensive
validation suite. Ada is not a superset or extension of any other language.
Ada does not allow the dangerous practices or effects of old languages,
although it does provide standardized mechanisms to interface with other
languages such as Fortran, Cobol, and C.
Ada is recognized as an excellent vehicle for education in programming and
software engineering, including for a first programming course.
Ada is defined by an international standard (the language reference manual,
or LRM), which has been revised in 1995. Ada is taught and used all around
the world (not just in the USA). Ada is used in a very wide range of
applications: banking, medical devices, telecommunications, air traffic
control, airplanes, railroad signalling, satellites, rockets, etc.
The latest version of this FAQ is always accessible through WWW as
http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/learning.html#title
Maintenance
This FAQ is maintained on an individual volunteer basis, by Magnus Kempe
(Magnus...@di.epfl.ch). [Note: This is done as a hobby, not in my
capacity as an employee at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. --MK]
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Report of a book, product, service, or event, etc., does not constitute an
endorsement. Opinions (if any) expressed are those of the submitters and/or
maintainer.
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Table of Contents:
* 1: Recent changes to the FAQ
* 2: Information about this document
* 3: Are there computer-based Ada tutorials?
* 4: Is there a list of good Ada books?
o Ada 95 Books
o Group 1: Books Suitable for a First Course in Programming
o Group 2: Other Books Intended for Undergraduate Courses
o Group 3: A Selection of Other Ada-Related Books
* 5: Credits
* 6: Copying this FAQ
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1: Recent changes to this FAQ
* 950531: updated list of tutorials.
* 950522: approved for posting in *.answers.
* 960309: added list of Ada 95 books.
* 960128: created, with contributions from David Wheeler and Mike
Feldman.
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2: Information about this document
This file is posted monthly to comp.lang.ada, comp.edu, comp.answers, and
news.answers.
This document has a home on the Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (HBAP) WWW
Server, in hypertext format, URL
http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/learning.html#title
It is available --as posted in *.answers-- on rtfm.mit.edu, which archives
all FAQ files posted to *.answers; see directory
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/computer-lang/Ada
The text-only version is also available in directory
ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/FAQ
Magnus Kempe maintains this document; it's a hobby, not a job. Feedback
(corrections, suggestions, ideas) about it is to be sent via e-mail to
Magnus...@di.epfl.ch
Thanks.
In all cases, the most up-to-date version of the FAQ is the version
maintained on the HBAP WWW Server. Please excuse any formatting
inconsistencies in the posted, text-only version of this document, as it is
automatically generated from the on-line, hypertext version.
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3: Are there computer-based Ada tutorials?
There are many ways to learn Ada.
Here are some on-line Ada tutorials expressly designed for self-study:
1. Lovelace is a free (no charge) self-directed Ada 95 tutorial available
on the World Wide Web (WWW), at
http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/Tutorials/Lovelace/lovelace.html
Lovelace assumes that the user already knows some other algorithmic
programming language (such as C, C++, or Pascal). Lovelace is
interactive; it contains a number of short sections, and most short
sections end with a question (to help ensure that you've understood the
section's material). Lovelace can be used directly from the WWW (see
above), downloaded from
http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/Tutorials/Lovelace/download.html
or run from a CD-ROM, described at http://ftp.cdrom.com/titles/ada.html
Lovelace was developed by David A. Wheeler.
2. Learn Ada on the Web (LAW) by Dr. Fintan Culwin was developed to freely
provide Ada training on the World Wide Web, at URL
http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/law/lawhp.html
LAW is concerned with initial software development education rather
than with helping programmers who already know other computer
languages. Also, LAW is concerned as much with providing software
engineering tools over the Web as with presenting information regarding
Ada. Dr. Culwin believes that the Lovelace and LAW projects are
complementary rather than needless duplication of each other, since
their target users are so different.
LAW includes an interesting capability to interactively create Ada
programs remotely over the Web; you might want to use this LAW
capability even if you choose to use another tutorial.
Dr. Culwin is at South Bank University, London, and may be contacted at
fin...@vax.sbu.ac.uk
3. Coronado Enterprises Tutorials are shareware tutorials. Their tutorial
of interest to us is an Ada 83 tutorial located at
http://www.swcp.com/~dodrill/adalist.html
(the suggested fee is US$15)
4. The C/C++ Programmers Ada Tutorial is a short hypertext tutorial,
located at http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/Ammo/Cplpl2Ada.html
for programmers who have a C or C++ style programming language
background. It was written by Simon Johnson, with some additional text
by Tucker Taft.
5. Ada-Tutr is a shareware interactive Ada tutor developed by John Herro
of Software Innovations Technology. You can download it from the
Ada-Tutr web site, at http://members.aol.com/AdaTutor/sit.htm
or the Ada-Tutr ftp site, located at
ftp://members.aol.com/AdaTutor/sit.htm
You can also download it by calling the SaddleBag BBS, 1-407-773-0831,
and log in with the name Ada Tutor and the password tutor. The Public
Ada Library's copy of Ada-Tutr (mirror) is another way to retrieve
Ada-Tutr. There is also an older version of Ada-Tutr for Ada 83
(mirror). AdaTutr has a number of exercises that give a more complete
understanding of Ada but will take more time to complete than a tutor
without such exercises (such as Lovelace).
6. HOT_Ada, a two-volume course/tutorial distributed on floppy disks, is
available from Stage Harbor Software; it is not directly available via
the WWW. It does not include a compiler. It is similar to a set of
tutorial slides, except for the hyper-linking features and the fact
that you can proceed at your own pace and accommodate your own learning
style and needs.
HOT_Ada is designed for individual, self-paced learning. One version
runs on Macintoshes, another on PCs with Windows. The many hypertext
and hypergraphic features allow you, for instance, to click on a "hot
word" to see its definition in the Glossary or click on a "hot icon" in
a diagram to jump to the corresponding line of Ada source code in a
previously hidden listing.
The regular price is $29 for a single volume, $49 for the two-volume
set.
E-mail inquiries welcomed at: bscra...@aol.com. Regular mail
inquiries or mail orders (specify Mac or Windows, personal checks
accepted) can be sent to:
Stage Harbor Software
9 Patriots Drive
Lexington, MA 02173
What does the course cover?
HOT_Ada is a two-volume course/tutorial, distributed on floppy disks.
Volume 1, the "core" part of the course, provides a pictorial
introduction to object technology (OOA and OOD presented in a
language-independent manner) and a pictorial introduction to Ada 9X,
with emphasis on its OOP features. Volume 2 provides an extended case
study with a step-by-step illustration of the OOA, OOD and OOP concepts
outlined in Volume 1. A mixture of classification and composition
approaches is illustrated. The OOA and OOD material is strongly
influenced by the Fusion Method, a fusion of OMT, Booch, Coad-Yourdon,
et al. HOT_Ada is designed for individual, self-paced learning. One
version runs on Macintoshes. Another version runs on PC's with Windows.
There are many hypertext and hypergraphic features. For example, you
can click on a "hot word" to see its definition in the Glossary, or
click on a "hot icon" in a diagram to jump to the corresponding line of
Ada source code in a previously hidden listing. A major theme of the
course is the reuse of patterns and parts.
Who can benefit from HOT_Ada?
Several categories of people can benefit from self-study using HOT_Ada.
If you are familiar with Ada 83, and have begun to study Ada 9X, you
can supplement other efforts by reviewing this picture-based material
and the case study. If, as an Ada software engineer, you want to learn
more about object technology in general, especially the Fusion
approach, HOT_Ada provides an ideal combination for learning and "tying
it all together." If you are a newcomer to Ada, the visual approach of
HOT_Ada may provide you with an excellent way to start your learning
process -- to be followed up using traditional text and classroom
methods.
What are the System Requirements?
o PC: Any PC with Windows Version 3.0 or later should be fine. You
will need about six MB of free space on your hard disk.(Two MB for
the ToolBook runtime and three MB for the two volumes of HOT_Ada.)
The beta version had been distributed on 4 disks. Version 1.1 (and
now Version 1.2) has been compressed, and is being delivered on a
single disk. You will need to "unzip" it.
o Mac: Any reasonably modern Mac (e.g., Mac II or PowerBook) with
two MB of RAM or more should work OK, but older "small screen"
Macs will be awkward, due to a lot of graphical scrolling that
will be needed. Version 1.1 (and now Version 1.2) is being
delivered on two disks, without compression. (Each disk contains
the HyperCard runtime integrated with a volume of HOT_Ada.) You
will need about three MB of free space on your hard disk.
How to Order by Mail?
Write a personal check for $49 to Stage Harbor Software and mail it to
Stage Harbor Software, 9 Patriots Drive, Lexington, MA 02173. Be sure
to specify the Windows or Mac version of HOT_Ada, and include your
e-mail address if you have one. (Credit card orders are not accepted.)
To Order from Outside the USA
To order from outside the USA, you can send an International Postal
Money Order or have your bank wire funds to my account at
The Cooperative Bank,
12 Nagog Park, Acton, MA, 01720-9890, USA,
Account: Bard S. Crawford, Stage Harbor Software,
Account Number 03520457558
-- and let Bard Crawford know separately that you are doing so.
[Source: Bard Crawford, Stage Harbor Software]
Here are some other Ada-related educational materials that you may find
helpful:
1. Introducing Ada95 is a set of slides about Ada 95 by Richard Conn,
released without restrictions on its use and distribution. Here's a
quote from Richard Conn:
This is a day-long short course that introduces Ada95. The
purpose of the course is to explore the Ada95 language,
including its facilities for object-oriented design and
programming, real-time programming, distributed processing,
and other domains. The course will concentrate on the
practical aspects of applying the features of Ada95 to the
software development process. Numerous examples of the
language are presented.
Richard Conn's tutorial is available in Zipped Powerpoint Postscript
format. (736K). A README file accompanies the tutorial.
Free viewers for both Macintosh (602K) and PCs running Windows (1,092K)
are available for those who do not own Powerpoint.
2. Ada 95: The Next Generation, a slide set by Mike Kamrad, is available
through the SIGAda server. It is available in both Powerpoint 4.0 for
the Macintosh format (140K) and Powerpoint 4.0 for Windows format
(84K). Free viewers for both Macintosh (602K) and PCs running Windows
(1,092K) are available for those who do not own Powerpoint.
3. ASSET maintains a collection of Ada-related courseware; see ASSET's WWW
page for more information.
4. Other PAL Courseware (mirror) products are available by FTP (in
addition to AdaTutr and Lovelace, listed above). Walnut Creek mirrors
the PAL onto its Ada CD-ROM. A copy of the Ada CD-ROM is available
on-line.
5. An "Academic Ada" package is being developed by Intermetrics. The
expected date for the beta version for Windows NT is March 1996, with
final versions out May 1996 (Windows NT) and Summer 1996 (other
platforms).
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4: Is there a list of good Ada books?
Mike Feldman maintains annotated bibliographies. they are selected lists of
useful books, with capsule reviews. You are invited to write reviews.
Michael B. Feldman
Education Working Group Chair, ACM Special Interest Group on Ada (SIGAda)
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-5919 (voice)
(202) 994-0227 (fax)
mfel...@seas.gwu.edu
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman/
Ada 95 Textbooks: Brief Reviews
February 1996
This bibliography is a project of the SIGAda Education Working Group. I am
serving as the editor of the list, and the contact point for sending in
reviews, but there are many reviewers. You too can be one! Just send a
capsule review, in the form of the ones here, and I will be glad to add it
to the list and credit you for the contribution.
Reviewers in this edition are Ted Baker, Jack Beidler, Michael Feldman, Stan
Kwasny, and Pat Rogers. Their initials appear after their respective
reviews.
There are nine books listed here; within each category, books are listed
alphabetically by author. I am informed of three more books in the pipeline,
all from Springer Verlag: an advanced data structures text by Jack Beidler,
an Ada 95 book for C and C++ programmers by Simon Johnston, and a book
version of David Wheeler's Lovelace, a very well-received Ada 95 tutorial on
the World Wide Web.
Group 1: Books Suitable for a First Course in Programming
Ada 95: Problem Solving and Program Design.
Michael Feldman and Elliot Koffman.
Addison-Wesley, 1996. (ISBN 0-201-87009-6)
As with the earlier edition by the same authors, the first 2/3 of the
book is suitable as a CS1 text with Ada as the language of instruction,
and the the last few chapters, combined with some language-independent
algorithm theory, cover the rest of the Ada langauge in sufficient
depth to serve as the language-specific basis of a CS2 course.
The style is like that of a musical fugue: sections that develop
general programming and problem solving techniques are interleaved with
sections that develop successively larger subsets of the Ada 95
language and libraries; examples recur from one chapter to another, in
progressively more completely developed forms. Packages are introduced
from the start; other language features are introduced very gradually
at first and then at a progressively faster pace. Loops come up in
chapter 5, records and arrays by chapter 8, generics by chapter 11, and
pointers, tagged types, and tasks in chapters 14-16. The nearly 200
examples have all been compiled and tested, and are available in
electronic format from the first author, the Addison Wesley home page,
and the usual Ada archives.(T.B.)
Ada from the Beginning. (2nd ed.)
Jan Skansholm.
Addison-Wesley, 1994. (ISBN 0-201-62448-6)
This book was one of the first to use Ada with CS1-style pedagogy.
There are excellent sections on the idiosyncracies of interactive I/O
(a problem in all languages), and a sufficient number of fully-worked
examples to satisfy students. Generics, linked lists and recursion are
covered at the end; there is no tasking coverage, but one would not
expect this at CS1-level. A very interesting addition is the new
Chapter 14, in which OOP in both Ada 83 and Ada 95 is discussed. This
is an especially lucid explanation of OOP in Ada, and makes a real
contribution because it doesn't just discuss tagged types as a
"feature" of Ada 95, but shows very nicely what is possible in Ada 83
(instead of just what is not possible), and shows how Ada 95 adds
functionality. Because the book was published before the Ada 95
standard was finalized, there are necessarily some inconsistencies.
These are minor and, we hope, will be corrected as the book is
reprinted.(M.B.F.)
Group 2: Books on Specific Topics, with Ada 95 as the Language of Discourse
Concurrency In Ada
Alan Burns and Andy Wellings.
Cambridge University Press, 1995. (ISBN 0-521-41471-7)
(Concurrent Programming and Real-Time Systems)
The ultimate Ada concurrency book (Burns' "Concurrent Programming In
Ada") has a successor for Ada95. Written by acknowledged real-time
experts, it covers the tasking model in great depth, including all the
existing and new capabilities as well as the Systems Programming Annex,
the Real-Time Systems Annex, and the Distributed Systems Annex. Also
included are an introduction to concurrent programming and an
examination of the interaction of the tasking facilities with those for
object-oriented programming. More than just a detailed language
examination, the book offers many examples of usage and analysis of
feature interaction that only these two authors could provide. Highly
recommended for introductory and advanced courses in concurrent and
real-time programming with Ada. (P.R.)
Software Construction and Data Structures with Ada 95.
Michael B. Feldman
Addison Wesley, 1996. (ISBN 0-201-88795-9)
(CS2/data structures)
As a book about data structures, this well-written, teachable book
assumes a base knowledge of Ada, although a quick review of the basics
is included.
Ada95 features are incorporated smoothly into the discussion and the
coded examples (which are available from the author). The book strikes
a nice balance between theoretical issues and practice with a wealth of
examples and much attention to detail, including a nice discussion on
how to time a program. The extensive material coverage includes
standard CS2 topics like "big O" analysis, linked lists, queues and
stacks, graphs, trees, hash methods, and sorting, but the reader is
allowed to investigate topics beyond the basics through additional
topics like strings, vectors, tables, file I/O, sets, priority queues,
AVL trees, and B-Trees, and several complete and illustrative examples,
including an employee database, an airline passenger list, an RPN
calculator, a discrete simulation, and even a simple window manager.
By introducing generic units relatively early (chapter 5), the text can
focus on reusability and sound software engineering solutions to a wide
variety of data structures problems, but never neglects the underlying
analysis. As a capstone to the development of several generic data
structures, chapter 14 covers generic sorting according to a wide
variety of methods each with its own data structure nuances. The final
chapter introduces concurrency.
This book is in final production for publication in May, 1996. The
nearly 200 programs and packages have all been compiled and tested, and
are available in electronic form from the author, the Addison Wesley
home page, and the usual Ada archives.(S.C.K.)
Methodes de Genie Logiciel avec Ada 95 (in French)
(Software Engineering Methods with Ada 95)
Jean-Pierre Rosen
Paris, InterEditions, 1995. (ISBN 2-7296-0569-X)
(Software Engineering)
This is a very interesting book written by a long-standing expert in
Ada and software engineering. Various methodologies are compared
(Booch, HOOD, Schlaer-Mellor, etc.), all in the context of Ada 95 but
not limited to language-specific discussions. Enough Ada 95
fundamentals are taught that it should not be necessary to know Ada 95
before reading the book, but this is not a book for people without some
programming background.
Recommended for classes taught in French and for individuals with a
good reading knowledge of French. The author is developing an English
translation, which I await enthusiastically. (M.B.F.)
Object-Oriented Software in Ada 95
Michael A. Smith.
International Thomson Computer Press, 1996. (ISBN 1-85032-185-X)
(Object-Oriented Programming for Advanced Undergraduates)
This book begins by providing an introduction to problem solving using
a Fusion-based object-oriented design methodology, in addition to
examining the basic constructs in the Ada 95 language. The book then
moves on to discuss the object-oriented features of the language, using
numerous examples to illustrate the ideas of encapsulation,
inheritance, and polymorphism. The book's capstone is a detailed case
study of the design and implementation of a textual user interface
(TUI) using object-oriented design methodology. This is a nice,
understandable, straightforward book on OOP with Ada 95, quite suitable
for self-study or an advanced undergraduate course. The brief survey of
Ada 95 at the beginning should be sufficient for readers with
programming experience. The several dozen source code files are
available on the Internet.
Group 3: General Texts Covering All of Ada 95
Programming In Ada 95, first edition
John Barnes.
Addison-Wesley, 1995. (ISBN 0-201-87700-7)
This new book by John Barnes continues a tradition of easy readability
that belies the depth of understanding required to make a complex
subject accessible. Though a new book for a new Ada, the style and
humor from the earlier book remain. The new Ada standard is covered as
a language in its own right, with few references to its predecessor
beyond a summary of language differences in each chapter. The core
facilities are covered extensively, with emphasis on rationale and the
"programming in the large" issues of abstraction, OOP, tasking and
exceptions. Of particular value is the chapter entitled Object Oriented
Techniques, which explores the application of the OOP, tasking and
generic unit facilities explained earlier in the book. Each chapter
contains coding exercises for further study, with fullly worked-out
answers in the back. The many who appreciated the earlier book will
likewise enjoy this, the new classic on Ada95. Highly recommended for
readers with programming experience. (P.R.)
Ada as a Second Language (2nd Edition)
Norman Cohen.
McGraw Hill, 1996. (ISBN 0-07-011607-5)
This is more like a new book than like a new edition. The first edition
of this book was a excellent reference to Ada(83), well organized and
filled with excellent examples of realistic code sequences. It was the
perfect reference to the language for those with substantial
programming experience in another programming language. One of the more
important features of the first edition is a well constructed index,
which becomes the major passageway into the book as it grows old and
worn.
That was the first edition, the second edition builds upon the
excellent organization that made the first edition an excellent
reference and adds material on the new features in Ada(95). To be more
precise, the new material is not added, it is integrated into a
seamless reference to Ada(95). The book is composed into twenty well
focused chapters and five appendices, including an appendix on the
special needs annexes. Each chapter concludes with two sections, one on
differences between Ada(83) and Ada(95), and a very brief chapter
summary. Isolating the discussion of '83 versus '95 differences to a
single section in each chapter has kept the rest of the presentation in
each chapter clean and to the point.
As an example of the quality in this book, consider Chapter Twelve,
Classwide Programming. This is the chapter that describes Ada's object
oriented programming support. Again the word "seamless" comes to mind.
Unless you know ahead of time what are the new features in the language
and what are the old features, you could not tell from the
presentation. Polymorphism, type extension, dispatching are presented
in a clear direct way, with excellent sample pieces of code. I was
particularly impressed by the clean presentation of Ada.Finalization,
and the realistic easy to follow sample code for the Initialize,
Finalize, and Adjust procedures.
In conclusion, "Ada as a Second Language, is the best non-language
lawyer reference to Ada(95), even for those whose first language is
Ada(83). (J.B.)
Rendezvous with Ada 95
David J. Naiditch.
John Wiley and Sons, 1995. (ISBN 0-471-01276-9)
This book is a revision of Naiditch's earlier "quick introduction" to
Ada for experienced programmers. The second edition is no longer
"quick" (it is nearly 150 pages longer) but is the best integrated
introduction to Ada 95 to appear thus far. One wishes only that the
author had provided more complete, compilable examples instead of the
fragments so typical of Ada texts. (M.B.F.)
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An Annotated Sampling of Ada-Oriented Textbooks
August 1995
(with contributions from Jack Beidler, Duane Jarc, Suzanne Pawlan Levy,
Mathew Lodge, Pat Rogers, and David Weller, as indicated by their
initials following their reviews)
As chair of the SIGAda Education Working Group, and a denizen of the
Internet newsgroups, I am often asked to give references for "Ada
textbooks." This list responds to these many queries.
* Group 1: Books Suitable for a First Course in Programming
* Group 2: Other Books Intended for Undergraduate Courses
* Group 3: A Selection of Other Ada-Related Books
The textbooks in the Group 1 are written especially for students without
programming experience, who are learning Ada as their first language. Most
of these can also cover at least part of a typical CS2-level course. The
books in Group 2 use Ada as their language of discourse but are
"subject-oriented:" data structures, file structures, compilers, comparative
languages. The remaining books in Group 3 are either "Ada books" focusing on
the language features or more general books that use Ada, at least in part,
but do not fit obviously into a standard curriculum "pigeonhole."
I invite you to add to the list. Please write your annotated entry in the
form I have used here and write or e-mail it to me, mfel...@seas.gwu.edu .
I will include it in my next version and credit you as a co-compiler of the
list.
Disclaimers: I wrote two of the texts listed here; I hope the annotations
are impartial enough. And any annotated bibliography is selective and
opinionated. Your mileage may vary.
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Group 1: Books Suitable for a First Course in Programming
Bover, D.C.C., K.J. Maciunas, and M.J. Oudshoorn.
Ada: A First Course in Programming and Software Engineering.
Addison-Wesley, 1992. ISBN 0-201-50992-X
This work is, to our knowledge, the first Ada book to emerge from
Australia, from a group of authors with much collective experience in
teaching Ada to first-year students. A number of interesting examples
are presented, for example, an Othello game. The book is full of gentle
humor, a definite advantage in a world of dry and serious texts. In the
book's favor is the large number of complete programs. On the other
hand, it is rather "European" in its terseness; American teachers may
miss the pedagogical apparatus and "hand-holding" typically found in
today's CS1 books. Generic units are hardly mentioned.
Culwin, F.
Ada: a Developmental Approach.
Prentice-Hall, 1992.
This work introduces Ada along with a good first-year approach to
software development methodology. Much attention is paid to program
design, documentation, and testing. Enough material is present in data
structures and algorithm analysis is present to carry a CS2 course. A
drawback of the book is that the first third is quite "Pascal-like" in
its presentation order: procedures, including nested ones, are
presented rather early, and packages are deferred until nearly the
middle of the book. This is certainly not a fatal flaw, but it will
frustrate teachers wishing a more package-oriented presentation. The
programs and solutions are apparently available from the author.
Dale, N., D. Weems, and J. McCormick.
Programming and Problem Solving with Ada.
D. C. Heath, 1994. ISBN 0-669-29360-1
This book is inspired by Dale and Weems' very successful Introduction
to Pascal and Structured Design, but it is not simply an Ada version.
Ada's more advanced capabilities such as exceptions, packages and
generic units are included in this text. In addition, more than half of
the material is completely new, and the order of the topics is
signficantly different. It also has more of a software engineering
focus than the Pascal version. The only Ada topics not included in this
text are tasks and access types. Procedures and packages are introduced
early. Each chapter includes case studies, testing and debugging hints
and excellent non-programming exercises and programming problems. The
text comes with a program disk containing all the programs given in the
book. In addition, a validated Meridian Ada compiler with complete
documentation is available at low cost to students using this book. (S.
P. L.)
DeLillo, N. J.
A First Course in Computer Science with Ada.
Irwin, 1993. (ISBN 0-256-12538-4)
This book is a first in the Ada literature: a version comes with an Ada
compiler, the AETech-IntegrAda version of Janus Ada. Author, publisher,
and software supplier are to be commended for their courage in this.
The book itself covers all the usual CS1 topics. In my opinion, the
order of presentation is a bit too Pascal-like, with functions and
procedures introduced in Chapter 5 (of 15) and no sign of packages
(other than Text_IO) until Chapter 10. Unconstrained arrays and
generics are, however, done nicely for this level, and Chapter 13 is
entirely devoted to a single nontrivial case study, a statistical
package. I wish there were more complete programs in the early
chapters, to put the (otherwise good) discussion of control and data
structures in better context.
Feldman, M.B., and E.B. Koffman.
Ada: Problem Solving and Program Design.
Addison-Wesley, 1992. ISBN 0-201-53364-2
This work combines the successful material from Koffman's CS1 pedagogy
with a software-engineering-oriented Ada presentation order. Packages
are introduced early and emphasized heavily; chapters on abstract data
types, unconstrained arrays, generics, recursion, and dynamic data
structures appear later. The last five chapters, combined with some
language-independent algorithm theory, can serve as the basis of a CS2
course. A diskette with all the fully-worked packages and examples
(about 180) is included; the instructor's manual contains a diskette
with project solutions. A second edition, with Ada 95 as the language,
is in preparation and due out at the beginning of 1996.
Savitch, W.J. and C.G. Petersen.
Ada: an Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming.
Benjamin/Cummings, 1992. ISBN 0-8053-7070-6
This is a straightforward adaptation of the well-known Savitch Pascal
books. Ada is introduced in a Pascal-like order, with subtypes and
packages introduced halfway through the book. This is purely a CS1
book. The final chapter covers dynamic data structures. There is
minimal coverage of unconstrained array types; generics are introduced
at the halfway point to explain Text_IO, then continued only in the
final chapter. The authors intended this book to provide a painless
transition to Ada for teachers of Pascal; one wishes they had taken
advantage of the chance to show some of the interesting Ada concepts as
well. Program examples from the text are available on disk, but only as
part of the instructor's manual; a solutions disk is available for a
fee from the authors.
Skansholm, J.
Ada from the Beginning. (2nd ed.)
Addison Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0-201-62448-6
This book was one of the first to use Ada with CS1-style pedagogy.
There are excellent sections on the idiosyncracies of interactive I/O
(a problem in all languages), and a sufficient number of fully-worked
examples to satisfy students. Generics, linked lists and recursion are
covered at the end; there is no tasking coverage, but one would not
expect this at CS1-level. A very interesting addition is the new
Chapter 14, in which OOP in both Ada 83 and Ada 95 is discussed. This
is an especially lucid explanation of OOP in Ada, and makes a real
contribution because it doesn't just discuss tagged types as a
"feature" of Ada 95, but shows very nicely what is possible in Ada 83
(instead of just what is _not_ possible), and shows how Ada 95 adds
functionality.
Smith, J. F., and T. S. Frank
Introduction to Programming Concepts and Methods with Ada
McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994 ISBN 0-07-911725-2
This is a well written and easy to use text. The book takes a spiraled
approach to CS 1. The authors do an excellent job integrating Ada into
the book. They take a very direct approach, especially with an early
introduction to the package concept and the traditional Text_IO
package. Faculty who have taught CS 1 with Pascal should like this
book. Instead of making a big fanfare about Ada features, they simply
introduce them as good support for software development concepts. The
authors have carefully chosen the Ada topics they decided to cover in
this book in order to strike a balance between staying true to the CS 1
course while presenting enough of the programming language. If you
teach CS 1 you might at least want to get a copy of this text just to
look at two chapters, Chapter 7 and Chapter 14. Seven covers program
correctness and run-time event (exception handling) and fourteen is a
beautiful presentation and example of generic packaging. Both
presentations are done in an appropriate manner for CS 1. (J. B.)
Volper, D., and M. Katz.
Introduction to Programming Using Ada.
Prentice-Hall, 1990. ISBN 0-13-493529-2
This book uses a heavily "spiraled" approach to Ada, and is designed
for a 2-semester course, covering nearly all of Ada eventually. There
are lots of fully-coded examples, and good pedagogical sections on
testing, coding style, etc. If you like spiraling, you'll like this.
The down side is that you can't find all you need on a given subject in
one place. It's at the other end of the scale from the "Ada books" that
follow the Ada Language Reference Manual (LRM) order.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Group 2: Other Books Intended for Undergraduate Courses
Ben-Ari, M.
Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming.
Prentice-Hall 1990. ISBN 0-13-711821-X
(OS/concurrency)
In my opinion, this is the best introduction to concurrency on the
market. Ada notation is used for everything, but the focus is on
concurrency and not on Ada constructs per se. I liked the CoPascal
notation of the first edition better, but this book is still great. A
software disk is promised in the preface; I had to work quite hard to
get it from the publisher, which finally had to express-ship it from
England. The software comes with a tiny Ada-ish interpreter, complete
with Pascal source code, adapted from Wirth's Pascal/S via CoPascal.
There are also some real Ada programs, most of which I've tested and
found correct and portable.
Feldman, M.B.
Data Structures with Ada.
Addison Wesley, 1993. ISBN 0-201-52673-5
(CS2/data structures)
This book is a reasonable approximation to a modern CS2 book: "big O"
analysis, linked lists, queues and stacks, graphs, trees, hash methods,
and sorting, are all covered. The Ada is a bit old-fashioned,
especially the lack of generics; the book was published before
compilers could handle generics. The packages and other programs are
available free from the author. The book has been heavily revised; the
Ada 95-based second edition should appear early in 1996 from
Addison-Wesley.
Fischer, C., and R. LeBlanc.
Crafting a Compiler.
Benjamin Cummings, 1988. ISBN 0-8053-3201-4
(compilers)
This book uses Ada as its language of discourse and Ada/CS, a usefully
large Ada subset, as the language being compiled. If you can get the
"plain Pascal" tool software by ftp from the authors, you'll have a
good translator-writing toolset. Skip the Turbo Pascal diskette
version, which is missing too many pieces to be useful. I've used the
book since it came out with both undergrad and graduate compiler
courses; it embodies a good blend of theory and "how it's really done"
coding. Students like it. The authors have recently published a second
version, which uses C as its coding language but retains Ada/CS as the
language being compiled.
Hillam, B.
Introduction to Abstract Data Types Using Ada.
Prentice-Hall, 1994. ISBN 0-13-045949-6
(data structures)
This is a very readable treatment of data structures presented using
Ada that makes good use of Ada features such as generics. It contain
many complete programs and packages. Unfortunately, obvious syntax
errors make it apparent that not all examples have been compiled. The
level of presentation is somewhere between an elementary, CS 2, data
structures course and an advanced, CS 7, course. A subset of first
eleven chapters provide the appropriate topics for a CS 2 course, but
not the pedagogy necessary for a course at that level. (D. J.)
Lomuto, N.
Problem-Solving Methods with Examples in Ada.
Prentice-Hall, 1987.
(algorithms)
Inspired by Polya's classic How to Solve It, this book can make a nice
addition to an Ada-oriented algorithms course. It makes too many
assumptions about students' programming background to use as a CS1
book, and doesn't teach enough Ada to be an "Ada book." But it makes
nice reading for students sophisticated enough to handle it. I'd
classify it as similar to Bentley's Programming Pearls.
Miller, N.E. and C.G. Petersen.
File Structures with Ada.
Benjamin/Cummings, 1990. ISBN 0-8053-0440-1
(file structures)
Designed for a straightforward ACM-curriculum file structures course,
this book succeeds at what it does. There are good discussions of ISAM
and B-tree organizations. The software can be purchased a low cost from
the authors; it seems to approximate in Ada all those C-based file
packages advertised in programmer-oriented trade publications.
Schneider, G.M., and S.C. Bruell.
Concepts in Data Structures and Software Development
(with Ada Supplement by P. Texel).
West, 1991.
(CS2/data structures)
This work is not, strictly speaking, an Ada book; rather, it is a
solid, language-independent approach to modern CS2. The language of
discourse in the book is a Pascal-like ADT language rather like
Modula-2 in style; some examples are coded in legal Pascal. The Ada
supplement makes it usable in an Ada-based course, but the supplement
is rather too terse (100 pages of large type) for my taste, and
insufficiently well keyed to the book chapters. The supplement's
effectiveness would be greatly enhanced by full translations to Ada of
a large number of the book's examples.
Sebesta, R.W.
Concepts of Programming Languages (2nd ed.).
Benjamin Cummings, 1993. ISBN 0-8053-7132-X
(comparative languages)
If you've been around for a while, you might remember the late Mark
Elson's 1975 book by the same title. This is similar: a concept-by-
concept presentation, with -- in each chapter -- examples taken from
several languages. I include this work in an "Ada list" because I like
its nice, impartial coverage of Ada. I especially like the chapters on
abstraction and exception handling. The book covers -- comparatively,
of course -- most of the lanuages you'd like to see, including C, C++,
Lisp, Smalltalk, etc., with nice historical chapters as well. The book
is readable; my students like it. Our undergraduate and graduate
courses both use it as a base text.
Stubbs, D.F., and N.W. Webre.
Data Structures with Abstract Data Types and Ada.
PWS-Kent, 1993. ISBN 0-534-14448-9
(advanced data structures)
This work updates and adapts to Ada the material in the authors'
successful data structures texts using Pascal and Modula-2. It is good
for a "heavy" CS2, i.e., one on the theoretical side, or a "light" CS7,
i.e. it is not as theory-oriented as the Weiss work below. More Ada,
especially regarding advanced types, is taught here than in Weiss.
Especially interesting about all the books from these authors is that
they have matched their "big O" performance prediction with tables and
graphs showing actual performance measurements.
Weiss, M.A.
Data Structures and Algorithms in Ada.
Benjamin/Cummings, 1993. ISBN 0-8053-9055-3
I think this book reaches its intended market -- data structures
courses (CS7) -- rather well with Ada. There's a good mixture of theory
and practice (ADT design, for example), and coverage of new topics like
amortized algorithm analysis and splay trees. A book at this level
should not pay too much attention to teaching a language; rather it
should make good use of its language of discourse. The Ada version does
not attempt to teach either the language or Ada-style software
engineering, but shows good understanding of the language, uses generic
packages quite well and focuses on the theory of algorithms, as a book
at this level should. This is the first, and so far the only, text in
Ada for this course.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Group 3: A Selection of Other Ada-Related Books
Barnes, J. G. P.
Programming in Ada. (4th edition)
Addison-Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0-201-62407-9
Barnes' work has been one of the most popular "Ada books." Some
students find it hard to see how the pieces fit together from Barnes'
often fragmentary examples; it is difficult to find complete,
fully-worked out, compilable programs. On the other hand, this book has
been a real best-seller, so Barnes clearly is doing something right.
The fourth edition has a 100-page summary of Ada 95, and a
fully-integrated Ada 95 fifth edition is in production for Fall 1995
release. Also, the third (Ada 83) edition is still in print, with an
Ada 83 reference manual included.
Booch, G.
Software Components with Ada.
Benjamin Cummings, 1987. ISBN 0-8053-0610-2
This work is an encyclopedic presentation of data structure packages
from Booch's OOD point of view. It is great for those who love
taxonomies. It's not for the faint-hearted, because the volume of
material can be overwhelming. It could serve as a text for an advanced
data structures course, but it's thin in "big O" analysis and other
algorithm-theory matters. The book is keyed to the (purchasable) Booch
Components.
Booch, G. and D. Bryan, with C. Petersen
Software Engineering with Ada. (3rd edition)
Benjamin/Cummings 1994. ISBN 0-8053-0613-7
Another of the classical "Ada books." Introduces Booch's OOD ideas. Not
for use to introduce Ada to novices, in my opinion; there are some nice
fully-worked case studies but they begin too far into the book, after
long sections on design, philosophy, and language elements. The earlier
chapters contain too much fragmentary code, a common flaw in books that
follow the LRM order. The third edition contains an appendix describing
Ada 9X.
Bryan, D.L., and G.O. Mendal.
Exploring Ada, Volumes 1.and 2.
Prentice-Hall, 1990 and 1992 respectively. ISBN 0-13-295684 (vol. 1); ISBN
0-13-297227-1 (vol. 2)
This is an excellent study of some of the interesting nooks and
crannies of Ada; it sometimes gets tricky and "language-lawyerly."
Volume 2 takes up tasking, generics, exceptions, derived types, scope
and visibility; Volume 1 covers everything else. The programs are short
and narrowly focused on specific language issues. If you like Bryan's
"Dear Ada" column in Ada Letters, you'll like this book. It is
certainly not a book for beginners, but great fun for those who know
Ada already and wish to explore.
Burns, A., and G. Davies.
Concurrent Programming.
Addison-Wesley, 1993, ISBN 0-201-54417-2
Solid book covering all aspects of writing concurrent software. Uses a
version of Pascal called FC-Pascal (available for free through the
Internet). The FC means "Functionally Concurrent". It has constructs
that are similar to Ada 9X, and this is by no accident -- the authors
frequently point out that the implementations in FC-Pascal are taken
from Ada 9X's Tasks and Protected Types. Covers lots of low-level
problems by gradually building up from simple examples. Highly
recommended for a Concurrent Programming class. Exercises and Further
readings are provided at the end of each chapter. (D.W.)
Burns, A. and A. Wellings.
Concurrency In Ada.
Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-521-41471-7
The ultimate Ada concurrency book (Burns' Concurrent Programming In
Ada) has a successor for Ada95. Written by acknowledged real-time
experts, it covers the tasking model in great depth, including all the
existing and new capabilities as well as the Systems Programming Annex,
the Real-Time Systems Annex, and the Distributed Systems Annex. Also
included are an introduction to concurrent programming and an
examination of the interaction of the tasking facilities with those for
object-oriented programming. More than just a detailed language
examination, the book offers many examples of usage and analysis of
feature interaction that only these two authors could provide. Highly
recommended for introductory and advanced courses in concurrent and
real-time programming with Ada. (P.R.)
Burns, A. and A. Wellings.
Real Time Systems and their Programming Languages
Addison-Wesley 1990. (ISBN 0-201-17529-0)
This is an excellent and unique book. Basic concepts and terminology
are explained before moving on to explain the major aspects of real
time design. "Real world" examples are presented in Ada, Modula-2 and
occam 2, though Ada is clearly the authors' language of choice and gets
the most coverage. Topics covered include reliability and fault
tolerance, concurrency, synchronisation, scheduling, message passing,
atomic transactions, resource control, distributed systems and
low-level device control. Efficiency is not neglected, and Ada support
here is particularly strong with detail on the CIFO package. Several
case studies are also presented. The only failing of the book is that
it needs updating to cover Ada 9x and its real-time annex, Modula-3
etc. However, the basic concepts that the authors convey so clearly are
independent of implementation language. (M. L.)
Cohen, N.
Ada as a Second Language.
McGraw Hill, 1986. ISBN 0-07-011589-3
This book is a quite comprehensive exploration of Ada which follows the
LRM in its presentation order. My graduate students like it because it
is more detailed and complete than alternative texts. It's an excellent
book for students who know their languages and want to study all of
Ada. There are good discussions of "why's and wherefore's" and many
long, fully-worked examples. An anxiously-awaited 2nd edition covering
Ada 95 is in the pipeline.
Gauthier, M.
Ada: Un Apprentissage (in French).
Dunod, 1989.
Ada: a Professional Course (in English).
Macmillan Computer Science Series, 1993. ISBN 0-333-58001-X.
I found this an especially interesting, almost philosophical approach
to Ada. The first section presents Ada in the context of more general
laguage principles: types, genericity, reusability. The second section
introduces testing and documentation concerns, as well as tasking; the
third considers generics and variant records in the more general
context of polymorphism. For mature Ada students in the French-speaking
world, and others who can follow technical French, this book can serve
as a different slant on the conventional presentations of the language.
The more recent English edition is a contribution to the Ada literature
in English, because of its getting behind the language itself into the
more general language-design principles.
Gehani, N.
Ada: an Advanced Introduction (2nd edition).
Prentice-Hall, 1989. ISBN 0-13-004334-6
I've always liked Gehani's literate writing style; he knows his
languages and treats Ada in an interesting, mature, and balanced
fashion. This book comes with a diskette sealed in the back of the
book, which is advantageous because the book has numerous nontrivial,
fully- worked examples.
Gehani, N.
Ada: Concurrent Programming (2nd edition).
Silicon Press, 1991. ISBN 0-929306-08-2
This is a less formal, more Ada-oriented presentation of concurrency
than the Ben-Ari work. I use both books in my concurrency course; its
real strength is the large number of nontrivial, fully worked examples.
Gehani offers a nice critique of the tasking model from the point of
view of an OS person. The preface promises the availability of a
software disk from the publisher.
Naiditch, D.J.
Rendezvous with Ada 95
New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1995. ISBN 0-471-01276-9
This book is a revision of Naiditch's earlier "quick introduction" to
Ada for experienced programmers. The second edition is no longer
"quick" (it is nearly 150 pages longer) but is the best integrated
introduction to Ada 95 to appear thus far. One wishes only that the
author had provided more complete, compilable examples instead of the
fragments so typical of Ada texts. Nevertheless, I recommend it as the
best introduction to Ada 95 at this point.
Nyberg, K. (editor)
The Annotated Ada Reference Manual. (3rd edition)
Grebyn Corporation, 1993.
This is the definitive work on Ada legalities, because it presents not
only the full text of the LRM but also the official Ada Interpretations
as prepared by the Ada Rapporteur Group of Working Group 9 of the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and approved by
that organization. These commentaries, interleaved with the LRM text,
are promulgated by the Ada Joint Program Office, the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) agent for Ada, in the Ada Compiler
Validation Suite (ACVC). They are thus binding upon compiler
developers. I recommend this book as an essential volume in the library
of every serious Ada enthusiast.
Watt, D.A., B.A. Wichmann, and W. Findlay.
Ada Language and Methodology.
Prentice-Hall, 1987. ISBN 0-13-004078-9
This work presents some interesting programming projects, and the
coverage of design and testing--at the level of a first-year
student--is quite good. The first third of the book concentrates
heavily on classical control and data structures, leaving subprograms
until Chapter 12, and exceptions and packages until the "programming in
the large" material in the second third. CS2 teachers will find too
little concentration on algorithm analysis. On the other hand, tasking
and machine-dependent programming are covered. Like the Shumate work,
this book would make a suitable introduction to Ada for students with a
semester or so of programming experience; it "jumps in" too quickly to
satisfy the needs of neophytes and is not well-tailored to CS1 or CS2
needs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5: Credits
The following persons have contributed to the information gathered in this
FAQ: Michael Feldman--who maintains the annotated lists of Ada books,
David A. Wheeler--who developed the original version of the tutorials list,
and Gordon Dodrill.
The maintainer has simply :-) organized, polished, or added some information
for your satisfaction.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6: Copying this FAQ
This FAQ is Copyright © 1996 by Magnus Kempe. It may be freely redistributed
--as posted by the copyright holder in comp.lang.ada and comp.edu-- in other
forums than Usenet News as long as it is completely unmodified and that no
attempt is made to restrict any recipient from redistributing it on the same
terms. It may not be sold or incorporated into commercial documents without
the explicit written permission of the copyright holder.
Permission is granted for this document to be made available under the same
conditions for file transfer from sites offering unrestricted file transfer
on the Internet and from Forums on e.g. Compuserve and Bix.
This document is provided as is, without any warranty.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magnus Kempe -- Magnus...@di.epfl.ch