Re: How difficult is ada to learn?

Thanks! You're absolutely right that sets are less of an issue than
strings. I overstated by saying "most people." My reference point is
undergrads in CS1, where small things can make a difference.

You perfectly illustrated what I meant. The overloaded plus
constructor is quite idiomatic. In Pascal, set construction just
happens. So students who know sets as an early exercise in Pascal do a
doubletake when they try the same in Ada. This mysterious-looking plus
pops up, and they must dig in to figure out operator overloading and
parameterized types in order to do what used to be self-evident. This
isn't a bad thing, but it does cause them to "miss" Pascal sets.

Best regards,
Gene

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