The Case for Ada at the USAF Academy

This paper describes our experience with selecting Ada as the primary programming language for Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors at the USAF Academy. We have decided to teach Ada in the first three courses of these majors for the next few years. Our criteria for selecting Ada are based on features of the language (such as strong typing, lack of single-character errors, and case insensitivity), features of the compiler, (such as error messages and warnings), and features of the overall development experience (such as development environments, availability of textbooks, GUI development support, and industr