Hello? What is Ada?

July 9th, 2008 at 23:46 · Filed Under Ada, At Work, Blogging, Days in My Life, Seminar · 4 Comments 

I was giving an Ada talk this afternoon. The room was quite packed with students although not full. They were mainly 3rd year sem 1. Most of them were looking at technologies that they could work with their FYP (Final Year Project).

While I regaled them with fascinating true facts of Ada, I could see various reactions on their innocent and ignorant faces. Almost half of them gave an expression of “What is Ada going to do with my project?”, “What is Ada? Never heard of it.” or “Ada is old technology and is unpopular.” It was years of experience telling me not to waste too much time with such audiences. I quickly skimmed through some technical facts which they wouldn’t understand and continue regaling them with some interesting facts.

Finally, I had come to the end of the talk. It was the questions and answers session. No one had asked any questions except a girl who asked me about C# after the talk session was over. I explained to her the benefits of Ada over C# but she said she would have to start all over again. Again, my instinct told me not to waste time with such attitude and I turned my focus onto the two students whom I am supervising now. I continued with them a discussion of their project.

Unlike a couple of years back, I was too over-enthusiastic about Ada. I would talk regardless of audience reactions. After a few talks and a seminar this year, I find that I have changed. My enthusiasm is parallel to audience reaction.

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Mathematics - The Systematic Reasoning

May 21st, 2008 at 1:50 · Filed Under Ada, Call Me a Geek, Computing, Mathematics, Pascal, Software Development · 4 Comments 

I remembered the way my mathematic teachers taught maths in class. Although none of them explained why we must learn maths, as it was the way supposed to be, they taught me systematic problem solving. I began to appreciate the beauty of mathematics when I started immersing myself in programming. The algorithm development and language constructs which are based on mathematics fascinate me with its beauty.

A good programming language teaches us systematic discipline and systematic reasoning. The first programming language which I learned was Commodore BASIC. I hated that. I learned half way (as the matter of fact, 2 days) and I switched to Apple Basic. In the mid 1980s, Apple II was the most popular home computer after Commodore VIC 20. Apple II that ran Apple DOS caught on the wagon very fast. The most common programming tool on Apple II was of course Apple BASIC. That was my first programming language and I had written many programs with it.

Then I was exposed to FORTRAN 77. The language construct was pretty much like Apple BASIC. I caught on with FORTRAN pretty fast. Then under some influences from friends whom I met at the computer center, I learned Apple Pascal. We challenged one another to increase the boot speed of Apple DOS. We rewrote Apple DOS with Apple Pascal and evidently increased the booting speed of Apple DOS.

Pascal is a very structured language (compared to Apple BASIC and FORTRAN 77) invented by Professor Niklaus Wirth to teach students programming and systematic reasoning. The structural construct of the language enable the programmer to think of the problem in a structural approach. Pascal cultivates structural discipline in solving programming problems. Pascal has provided me most of the necessary training in systematic discipline and systematic reasoning in solving problems.

When CP/M was introduced on Apple II, I was able to use UCSD Pascal on CP/M enabled Apple II machines. It won’t be long before IBM and IBM compatibles (8086) stirred up a turmoil with MS-DOS. Then, Turbo Pascal (by Borland) emerged. Turbo Pascal was the lightest and fastest compiler at that time. I became addicted in writing computer programs with Turbo Pascal.

Then I caught on with C and C++ and began to develop software with Borland’s Turbo C/C++ compiler. When MS Windows became a de-facto standard on every desktop computers, I dwelled into Borland’s Delphi (based on Object Pascal) to develop GUI applications.

During Apple CP/M era, I was exposed to Ada. I discovered Ada compiler by accident in another computer shop. I bought the program without thinking twice. Of course, it was a pirated copy. There was no copyright law then. But thanks to the pirated Ada compiler, otherwise I would not know such beautiful programming language has ever existed!

In 1995, I started to learn Ada when books were available. In no time, I fell in love with Ada until today. Whenever I was told or perhaps requested to look at computer programs written in any other languages, e.g. PHP, Visual Basic, C/C++ and etc., I feel that represent an insult to mind trained in systematic reasoning as in Pascal papers which Professor Wirth wrote.

Ada and Pascal are very alike because Ada developers had adopted Pascal’s structural language construct. Both Ada and Pascal clearly represent logical expression without any difficulties. Both languages are constructed heavily based on mathematic concepts and thus enforce systematic discipline and systematic reasoning.

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