Programming in Ada is similar to programming in Pascal. If you are familiar with any of the Pascal type languages you will have not problem learning the format of Ada 95.
Compilers
Free
If you do not have an Ada 95 compiler
you will want download one before you begin. A free compiler can be downloaded
from GNAT at the following URL.
http://www.acm.org/sigada/resources/sources.html#GNAT
Buy
If you are looking for a professional
compiler you can look at one of the following sites.
http://www.tenon.com/products/codebuilder/
If you do not find what you are looking for you can write or call one of these companies.
Rational Software Corporation, 2800 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95051-0951; tel: 1-800-RAT-1212
R.R. Software, P.O. Box 1512, Madison, WI 53701; contact: 608/245-0375; e-mail: Ian@rrsoftware.com
Books
A very good book for C and C++ users is Ada 95 for C and C++ Programmers by Simon Johnston. This book comes with a CD ROM containing an Ada 95 compiler and the program examples from the book. This book is not intended for a beginning programmer. It is written for C and C++ programmers with a knowledge of pointers and basic object-oriented concepts.
If you are a new programmer, a good place to start is with a book by like Ada 95 From the Beginning by Jan Skansholm. Jan Skansholm takes you from the very beginning concepts of the language all the way into object-oriented programming.
Online references
Tutorials
A free tutorial can be found at http://www.adahome.com/Tutorials/Lovelace/lovelace.htm . If you do not have a book about Ada 95, this is an excellent place to start learning.
Another tutorial can be found at http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/law/lawhp.html .
A tutorial for C and C++ programmers who want to learn Ada 95 is located at http://www.adahome.com/Ammo/cpp2ada.html .
News Groups
Two good news groups for Ada users are comp.object and comp.lang.ada. Comp.object is a news group for programmers who want to discuss different subjects about object-oriented languages. Comp.lang.ada is a news group for programmers who want to talk about some of the problems they are encountering with some of their Ada programs.
Resource web sites
A good web site to start with is http://www.adahome.com/ . This web site gives links to other ada sites. There is a section with book reviews, FAQs, and language comparisons.
Special interest group for Ada is located at http://www.acm.org/sigada/ .
Ada Europe can be found at http://www.ada-europe.org/ .
ISO home of
Ada standards can be viewed at http://anubis.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC22/WG9/
.
Go to the Table of Contents or the Tutorial Table of Contents