[GAP] RE: JEWL

[Riehle, Richard USA]

Robert makes a good point, as usual.

The question about learning is what we want them
to learn.  I remember that, when I was teaching Ada
83, the libraries were generally not useful for 
students who wanted to write programs they could
enjoy.  Now, with JEWL, Win-IO, Rapid, Adagraph,
and other tools, the students actually enjoy writing
Ada programs.   

The fact that some of my students share their game
programs with their children (most of my students
are married and have children), is exciting.   They
actually continue to enhance these programs even after
the class is over, in part driven by the fact that they
can write interesting programs.  

I agree that Java seems to oversimplify the difficulties
of real programming.   BASIC did the same thing.   Still,
when we can make learning a joyful experience, it is easier
to include the more profound ideas behind programming even
as the students are allowed to be creative in their solutions.

My situation might be quite different since all my students
are working on either a Master's Degree or a PhD.   They
have already had courses in algorithms, data structures, 
discrete math, and lots of other theoretical stuff.  When
they can take that theory and use it to build interesting
programs in Ada (along with other languages, of course) they
are learning that Ada is not as terrible as their other
professors tell them.  Not only is not terrible, it is actually
fun.  That lesson, in my environment, is an important part 
of their learning.  When these young officers (and increasingly
DoD civilians) from all the services (Navy, USMC, USAF, US Army,
and many international military organization) are in the position
to make decisions regarding programming language selection, Ada
becomes one of the languages they remember fondly.  Or previous
graduates, many of them now high level officers, sometimes speak
of Ada as having been "painful."   I don't ever want to hear
some Admiral again use the word "painful" to describe his 
experience with Ada.   

Perhaps I am leaning too far in the direction of making Ada "fun."
However, given the sober content of the rest of the students' 
education here at NPS, I think I might be on the right track.

Thanks to everyone for their comments.

Richard Riehle



-----Original Message-----
From: gap-bounces at gnat.info [mailto:gap-bounces at gnat.info] On Behalf Of
Robert Dewar
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 4:53 PM
To: GNAT Academic Program discussion list
Subject: Re: [GAP] RE: JEWL

Riehle, Richard USA wrote:
> In an earlier message, as part of a discussion regarding
> approaches to teaching Ada, I mentioned that I find that
> my students enjoy writing Windows programs using JEWL.
> 
> Was that comment so outrageous that no one felt it was 
> worth comment?   Does no one else consider the concept
> of "fun" important when teaching and learning a programming
> language?

It's important, but I think you have to avoid the phenomenon
of people fiddling with graphics libraries etc instead of
learning how to program. I notice that Java courses tend to
be particularly prone to this disease.

There are many ways students can have fun, but let's not
forget that the primary purpose of courses is learning!

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