A Review of ``Programming in Ada 2012'' by John Barnes

The book being reviewed is ``Programming in Ada 2012'' by John Barnes (ISBN 978-1-107-42481-4).

Information concerning it may be found here:
http://www.cambridge.org/barnes

I started learning Ada in late 2018 by reading the latest ``Ada Reference Manual'', and even later I
took the advice of other Ada programmers to read this book being reviewed.  It wasn't heavy reading,
but I've a habit of making good progress and then allowing the book to languish for weeks or months;
I read it unevenly throughout 2019 and finished it this month; part of my reason for this is how one
is able to program in Ada reasonably well before finishing, with my doing so by chapter twenty-four.

This book is easier reading than the ``Ada Reference Manual'', which is most concerned by detailing.
I'm to understand there aren't many choices with Ada books, it's also rather lengthy, but this isn't
egregious alone; the book is delightfully free of a modern rot found within other programming books.
Most every chapter is dedicated to an aspect of the language, and it's organized well for reference.

The book is well-typeset; particularly pleasant are lists of differences comparing previous versions
of the language, resulting from the book's repeatedly-updated nature.  Interspersed between chapters
are six example programs of decent length exemplifying different qualities of the language, although
I'd write such programs differently.  Chapters are also accompanied by a review summary.  The author
does a fine job of explaining how complex machine rules give way to their simple human explanations.

The appendices of the book form a more formal reference I'll be using for the remainder of my owning
it.  The entire book forms a nice reference, owed to structure.  Given its long length, I do find it
absurd that anything is kept outside, stored instead in the WWW; the book could be far more concise.
.