Ada for 1st year students : ADA

Dear Fellow Adaists:

I have been blessed with the oportunity to teach Ada to 1st year
students of a licenciate programme of informatics engineering at
Universidade Lusófona do Porto.

I seek advice from the vast wisdom in this forum, on:

(1) Textbooks. In Portuguese (Brazilian translation fine) or English.
Must be introductory, i.e. for students sans prior knowledge of
programming in any language. Should be small or cheap (or both). The
vendor should be prompt.

(2) Compilers. Must be free (as in free beer) or very low cost
(perhaps an educational license) and install out-of-the box on Windows
or Linux (or both, preferably). Must support Latin-1, preferably
Unicode. The vendor should be prompt.

(3) IDE or text editor. Same requirements as above.

(4) Graphic or GUI library. (I want to be able to produce graphical
output, not just the same old text output on a teletype-like window.)
Same requirements as above, plus: a simple or small API, eventually at
the cost of possibilities (e.g. may be limited to a single window, of
a single fixed size, limited number of colors). Should have some
support for input, e.g. textboxes, buttons, mouse input. Should use a
simple fragment of Ada, viz. excluding OOP. Should support printing,
or exporting to PDF or some such, or clipboard copying onto a "office"
document, or any combination of the above. Support for a picture
format would be a plus (PNG, JPEG...)

I have knowledge, in various degrees, of various items in each
category, but I will not name any at this moment, to avert
prejudice ;-)

Many thanks.

On Oct 9, 8:06 pm, amado.al...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> (2) Compilers. Must be free (as in free beer) or very low cost
> (perhaps an educational license) and install out-of-the box on Windows
> or Linux (or both, preferably). Must support Latin-1, preferably
> Unicode. The vendor should be prompt.
>
Both GNAT GPL and GNAT GAP (Academic) are free of charge, support
Linux 32/64 and Windows, easy for install.

> (3) IDE or text editor. Same requirements as above.
>
GPS is a part of the GNAT GPL/GAP.

> (4) Graphic or GUI library. (I want to be able to produce graphical
> output, not just the same old text output on a teletype-like window.)
> Same requirements as above, plus: a simple or small API, eventually at
> the cost of possibilities (e.g. may be limited to a single window, of
> a single fixed size, limited number of colors). Should have some
> support for input, e.g. textboxes, buttons, mouse input. Should use a
> simple fragment of Ada, viz. excluding OOP. Should support printing,
> or exporting to PDF or some such, or clipboard copying onto a "office"
> document, or any combination of the above. Support for a picture
> format would be a plus (PNG, JPEG...)
>
GtkAda and QtAda. But both has large and powerful API and use OOP.
QtAda has binary package for Windows.

On Oct 9, 6:06 pm, amado.al...@gmail.com wrote:
> Dear Fellow Adaists:
>
> I have been blessed with the oportunity to teach Ada to 1st year
> students of a licenciate programme of informatics engineering at
> Universidade Lusófona do Porto.
>
> I seek advice from the vast wisdom in this forum, on:
>
> (1) Textbooks. In Portuguese (Brazilian translation fine) or English.
> Must be introductory, i.e. for students sans prior knowledge of
> programming in any language. Should be small or cheap (or both). The
> vendor should be prompt.
>
> (2) Compilers. Must be free (as in free beer) or very low cost
> (perhaps an educational license) and install out-of-the box on Windows
> or Linux (or both, preferably). Must support Latin-1, preferably
> Unicode. The vendor should be prompt.
>
> (3) IDE or text editor. Same requirements as above.
>
> (4) Graphic or GUI library. (I want to be able to produce graphical
> output, not just the same old text output on a teletype-like window.)
> Same requirements as above, plus: a simple or small API, eventually at
> the cost of possibilities (e.g. may be limited to a single window, of
> a single fixed size, limited number of colors). Should have some
> support for input, e.g. textboxes, buttons, mouse input. Should use a
> simple fragment of Ada, viz. excluding OOP. Should support printing,
> or exporting to PDF or some such, or clipboard copying onto a "office"
> document, or any combination of the above. Support for a picture
> format would be a plus (PNG, JPEG...)
>
> I have knowledge, in various degrees, of various items in each
> category, but I will not name any at this moment, to avert
> prejudice ;-)
>
> Many thanks.

Well, an easy answer to your 2..4 questions is the GNAT solution
with the GPS IDE and GtkAda. I'm sure that it works both with
Linux and Windows, since I work on Linux and my students on
Windows. I never used GtkAda, so I do not know if it suits
your needs. No idea about the book...

Vadim Godunko schrieb:

> GtkAda and QtAda. But both has large and powerful API and use OOP.
> QtAda has binary package for Windows.

With all due respect to the creators, both GtkAda and
QtAda are anything but a beginner's item.
JEWL seems more to the point, and tested in the desired
environment.

Amado writes:
> Dear Fellow Adaists:
>
> I have been blessed with the oportunity to teach Ada to 1st year
> students of a licenciate programme of informatics engineering at
> Universidade Lusófona do Porto.

Great news. Congratulations and I hope you enjoy it.

> I seek advice from the vast wisdom in this forum, on:
>
> (1) Textbooks. In Portuguese (Brazilian translation fine) or English.
> Must be introductory, i.e. for students sans prior knowledge of
> programming in any language. Should be small or cheap (or both). The
> vendor should be prompt.

John English, "Ada 95: The Craft of Object-Oriented Programming",
1997; available free of charge at http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/

The wikibook at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/; this is
not really a textbook but can be a good complement to the above.

> (2) Compilers. Must be free (as in free beer) or very low cost
> (perhaps an educational license) and install out-of-the box on Windows
> or Linux (or both, preferably). Must support Latin-1, preferably
> Unicode. The vendor should be prompt.

GNAT GPL Edition from http://libre.adacore.com, or call for tenders
from the vendors listed at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing

Most GNU/Linux distributions already contain GNAT from the Free
Software Foundation.

> (3) IDE or text editor. Same requirements as above.

GNAT GPL Edition and Debian both come with the GNAT Programming
Studio.

> (4) Graphic or GUI library. (I want to be able to produce graphical
> output, not just the same old text output on a teletype-like window.)
> Same requirements as above, plus: a simple or small API, eventually at
> the cost of possibilities (e.g. may be limited to a single window, of
> a single fixed size, limited number of colors). Should have some
> support for input, e.g. textboxes, buttons, mouse input. Should use a
> simple fragment of Ada, viz. excluding OOP. Should support printing,
> or exporting to PDF or some such, or clipboard copying onto a "office"
> document, or any combination of the above. Support for a picture
> format would be a plus (PNG, JPEG...)

For the GUI I would rule out both GtkAda and QtAda; not because they
are "bad" but because there are simpler alternatives for simple
programs. These alternatives are:

JEWL (John English's Window Library), comes with the aforementioned
text book; see http://www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/staff/je/jewl/.
Unfortunately, does not support X11.

TextTools, a text-mode library for doing windows, buttons, scroll bars
etc; portable on multiple operating systems, and incidentally
available as part of Debian. See http://www.pegasoft.ca/tt.html

> I have knowledge, in various degrees, of various items in each
> category, but I will not name any at this moment, to avert
> prejudice ;-)

I have a prejudice against proprietary software, so I don't name
names, but there is a vendor in Madison, Wisconsin, who might be able
to help if you don't need compatibility with POSIX

--
Ludovic Brenta.

amado.alves@gmail.com writes:

> I have been blessed with the oportunity to teach Ada to 1st year
> students of a licenciate programme of informatics engineering at
> Universidade Lusófona do Porto.

You should check out the GAP program at AdaCore.

- Bob

> GtkAda and QtAda. But both has large and powerful API and use OOP.
> QtAda has binary package for Windows.

From the info on websites it seems QtAda uses the "native look and
feel" of each platform whereas GtkAda uses... what? X on unixes and
what on Windows?
Thanks.

On 9 Out, 18:00, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de> wrote:
> Vadim Godunko schrieb:
>
> > GtkAda and QtAda. But both has large and powerful API and use OOP.
> > QtAda has binary package for Windows.
>
> With all due respect to the creators, both GtkAda and
> QtAda are anything but a beginner's item.
> JEWL seems more to the point, and tested in the desired
> environment.

If I choose one of the big systems then I'll make a non-OOP binding to
it for my students to use. Like John English did a few years ago.
Maybe I'll choose JEWL. Problem is it only supports Microsoft Windows.
I wanted to support Linux too. Using JEWL and then telling my students
"if you want graphics you have to use Windows" will send the wrong
message I'm afraid... Not pedagogical at all.

amado.alves@gmail.com wrote:
>
> (4) Graphic or GUI library. (I want to be able to produce graphical
> output, not just the same old text output on a teletype-like window.)
> Same requirements as above, plus: a simple or small API, eventually at
> the cost of possibilities (e.g. may be limited to a single window, of
> a single fixed size, limited number of colors). Should have some
> support for input, e.g. textboxes, buttons, mouse input. Should use a
> simple fragment of Ada, viz. excluding OOP. Should support printing,
> or exporting to PDF or some such, or clipboard copying onto a "office"
> document, or any combination of the above. Support for a picture
> format would be a plus (PNG, JPEG...)

This is probably going to drive your platform selection. The only thing I'm
aware of that comes close to meeting your requirements for this is JEWL, which
is Windows only. JEWL is implemented using type extension, but does not require
it from the client. It doesn't support printing, but should support clipboard
copying. It can display BMP images.

Note: in English, "eventually" doesn't mean what its cognate in romance
languages means (I'm familiar with "eventuel" in French).

--
Jeff Carter
"How'd you like to hide the egg and gurgitate
a few saucers of mocha java?"
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
101

On Oct 9, 10:25 pm, amado.al...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> From the info on websites it seems QtAda uses the "native look and
> feel" of each platform whereas GtkAda uses... what? X on unixes and
> what on Windows?
"native look and feel" means what you can't distinguish native and
QtAda applications usually. QtAda application uses user's preferences
from the Control Panel for drawing and user input handling. It uses
native dialogs, for printing and file operations for example, and so
on. GtkAda application sometimes force its own style. :-(