1. Introduction

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This chapter introduces the Ada programming language and the remainder of this first LearnAda volume. The table below provides hyperlinks to the other web pages (sections) in the chapter.

Chapter Contents

We begin with three simple example programs designed to give you an early look at some Ada code. These are followed by a brief history of the language and some discussion of key language features, presented in a way that is designed to motivate your continued interest in using Ada. Next we provide an overview of later chapters and a discussion of ways of using the material -- as a text book and as a reference source.

We conclude with a brief chapter summary. The last (summary) section of every chapter includes four things: some "self-test" questions, a bulleted-list summarizing key points of the chapter, answers to the self-test questions, and a list of key terms (clickable hotspots) described in the Glossary/Index.

On most pages some terms are italicized and underlined, indicating that they are described in the glossary and that these are "hotspots" hyperlinked to the glossary descriptions. An example is the term predefined environment. After clicking one of these and jumping to the Glossary/Index page, you can return by clicking the Back arrow of your web browser. Items that are underlined but not italicized are hyperlinks to other pages, usually appearing at the bottom of a page under "Related Topics."

Nearly every page containing an example program also contains a diagram depicting a set of modules interconnected in some way -- consistent with the metaphor that the program is "a set of lego blocks snapped together." (In the browser version colored elements in the diagrams are links to specific lines of code.)

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