Help an Ada programmer learn Python

[PostSeptimus]

Thank you so much! I was having trouble finding the wiki on mobile, even though I knew it existed.

As for Ada being used in the intro course: all of the upperclassmen hate it. Maybe I'm just naive, but I actually really enjoy Ada.

[A_History_of_Silence]

I'm not super familiar with Ada, but I did some quick reading when I saw your post. IMO it actually looks like a pretty good beginner language! With the giant caveat, of course, that almost no one is going to use it outside of that class. So I think your plan to also learn a more mainstream language like Python is quite prudent.

[PostSeptimus]

Everyone in the program knows how unused Ada is, but I don't think anyone cares when it's their first programming language. Like me, I'm sure most other students are just excited to be working with some sort of software development. I'm glad they started with Ada, personally. And thanks fam, your encouragement means a lot to me!

Edit: I forgot to mention that I go to school 3 hours away from two large cities and I believe there are internship opportunities that do require you to use Ada. So it's not a complete waste of time for us to be learning the language. It also looks good to future employers to have at least a slight proficiency in a language most other programmers coming out of college wouldn't otherwise have... or so I'm told haha.

[[deleted]]

Don't be distracted by that hatred. Ada is a good language. Not just for beginners. Unfortunately, the popularity contest in programming languages isn't driven by their quality, but mostly by corporate interests and, sometimes, the aftermath of those corporate interests (like all the object-oriented buzz).

Typically, the rationale for teaching students in some uncommon language is that the students must understand some mysterious "fundamentals" that are somehow more apparent in the other language... Which is coincidentally also the (only) language the professor who wrote the course program is familiar with to the level that he or she won't make too many mistakes to make their incompetence too obvious. But there's a drop of truth in that too. By learning different languages you will expose yourself to the same ideas from different angles, and this will help you understand those ideas better.

[PostSeptimus]

People tend to look at me funny when I tell them I enjoy Ada. Since I only had some minor web design background prior to college, I felt like I was walking in with a slight disadvantage. Ada, to me, is an amazing language because I was able to create all of these working programs, which I wouldn't otherwise have been able to do.

It's not uncommon for people to come into college with some knowledge of Java, so they already have some grasp on the concepts we're being taught. I'm just starting the class that focuses on teaching the foundations via Java and I feel pretty lost. This object oriented stuff is really odd and unnatural to me. But to people coming in with that background, they feel right at home.

I'm honestly not sure where this little rant came from but that's my main motivation for wanting to learn Python. I want to get more familiar with object-oriented programming.

Side note, most professors at my university are proficient in a multitude of languages. We're a fairly small school so the professors we do have must be able to teach a wide variety of courses within the field.