[GAP] advice on Ada in general programming languages course

[Ressler, E. COL EECS]

We use Ada as our main teaching language for CS majors and so are fairly
constantly dealing with raised eyebrows.  I will relate our response.
Though it does not apply directly to Ted's course, perhaps it's useful
anyway. 

Fortunately we do not have to worry about our graduates contending with
the short-term training needs of first-employers, so our reasons are
based in helping people who are learning to design and write software:

* People who learn Ada finish the experience as better programmers
regardless of language.  The same Ada features that make for reliable
codes also encourage thinking that leads to better code in C/C++, Java,
or what have you.  To wit, we have an exchange program that places
students at another school that has a Java/C++/C# based CS program.  Yet
we receive reports that our students pick up a new language on the fly
and within a semester are writing better code than their counterparts
who grew up with these other tools.  Ditto for summer internships.

* Nearly all students are more productive in Ada than in Java, C++, or
Pascal.  I am qualified to say this for C/C++ and Pascal through
personal experience with CS1/2 and courses on compilers, graphics, and
operating systems.  Colleagues have verified it with Java, though the
difference is not as stark.  I came at this issue as a huge skeptic, but
was won over by the fact of students getting 50-100% more functioning
code written on the same projects, same environment, with Ada than with
C++.

* In a heterogeneous world, Ada is _the_ most mature cross-platform,
non-proprietary, network-friendly development environment.  And it's
freely available.

Of course there are negatives, too: the "binding lag" and popular
prejudice are two; the former is most important.  But we live with these
happily.

Gene Ressler