Your opinion about language

[marex]

I followed the thread about programming languages.
This is what I think about it.

1. Assembler is my first preference, nothing can beat it.
Possitive = speed, negative = much code.
Will be the language for the real programmer

2. VB on the second place because it's easy to learn and
very good for most applications.

3. C/C++ in combination with assembler most beeing used
for games. Not so easy to learn but also good for speed.

We also have Powerbuilder, Clipper, Foxpro, Delphi but I
think the 3 languages are still those mentioned above.

Every programmer will like the language he knows best and
it's not so easy to compare all that unless you know every
language and write the same application to check everything.

Let me know if I'm wrong.

cheers
Ray

[filburt1]

Assembly is a b**** to program in and is nearly impossible to port. So assembly is a no-no unless you are concerned with making insanely fast code.

VB is kinda cool, not TOO slow, and has the best IDE.

C is archaic. It is way too obscure and relatively difficult to program in. Unlike C++, which is OO and can be used to make Windows programs.

I've seen some cool programs written in Delphi.

What about Java? It's not just for applets, you can make full-blown completely cross-platform programs. And the VM doesn't slow down your code as much as it used to.

[denniswrenn]

C can be used to make Windows apps... *oops*

[filburt1]

Not real ones.

[denniswrenn]

What are you talking about?

[filburt1]

I dunno, I've been playing online Descent 3 for a while.

[marex]

filburt1

Assembly is a b**** to program in

Have you ever programmed in assembler?

Well I did it for more than 20 years, oke it was on mainframes,
but nevertheless I still like it.

I even have an IBM emulator program for PC and it works fine.
Just used for playing around. Call it nostalgie.

I've changed to VB when it was on version 5, the older versions
I didn't like. Now with VB6, oke that's great.

I've tested a while with C and Delphi but find VB better.

denniswrenn

Are you a C programmer?

Cheers
Ray

[denniswrenn]

I prefer C++, but I do know a bit of C.

[marex]

I thought so.

Well as I said you love the language you know best.
As long as you can do everything and with a good speed than
it's oke.

I'm not sure that thereis a very bad language.
You just must know all of his possibilities.

Ummmm, I still love assembler.
Could be because I'm of an older generation.
They called us the bitf*****s.

cheers
Ray

[denniswrenn]

I want to learn to program in Assembler, eventually, but right now I think I'll stick with C/C++.

[marex]

I think you're right because I'm not sure that there is
a market for assembler programmers.

The future will be Internet and probably Java or something new.



cheers
Ray

[parksie]

The Win32 API is written in C, so don't say C isn't a real language. It may be obscure, but that's because you're VERY close to the machine level, and as I said in another thread you can convert C to assembler yourself without too much difficulty

C++ is very cobbled-together, but it's still great. And filburt, I expect you're one of the people that would use MFC to make windows programs

[marex]

parksie

I didn't say that C isn't a real programming language.
But as you said on machine level is another story.
Because I'm from an older generation, there was nothing
than assembler. That time you have to deal with the so
called real programmers.

I'm not saying that the new generation of programmers
is bad because they are doing great things with the new
languages.

The reason the languages has been changed from assembler
to any other language was just because of the programming
speed and the readability for the programmer.

We had our generation, now it's up to your generation.
In about 10 years maybe there will be another and
better language, no more code writing, but just talking
with sentences.

Than we have the talking or singing programmers.

cheers
Ray

[parksie]

I'm a singing programmer...unfortunately the computer ignores me

[marex]

I tryed the L&H speech software but the computer
ignores completely my voice.
It listen better to female voices. (Higher frequency) ;p


Ray

[filburt1]

I have yet to find voice recognition software that works good. I cannot say a single sentence without having to say "correct that" several times.

[marex]

Is this realy because of the software or are you
using tremble sounds.


Ray

[filburt1]

<- meaning sarcasm

[marex]

It was quicker said as I thought.


Ray

[HarryW]

Assembly is useful for time-critical parts of your code, but in general the extra effort in writing assembly code to speed up your program can be better spent in designing algorithms with a lower time complexity. It's still useful sometimes, but you really need to know it well to optimise better than modern compilers will do automatically.

C and C++ are virtually identical in my opinion. A few differences here and there, and I prefer C++, but altogether not that different to work with unless you're heavily into OO stuff. But that can be done in C if you really want to, you just end up re-inventing C++.

[marex]

HarryW

Oke your preferred language is C/C++.

When writing database applications would you
also take C/C++ or looking for another such as VB.

By the way, what's happened with Paul Whitfield?


cheers
Ray

[kedaman]

I'm heavily into OO stuff, but that doesn't mean I don't care about speed, I use templates and inlining whenenver possible, templates used in conjunction with functors are excellent for obtaining a flexible interface without creating performance bottlenecks in time critical code. That's mainly why I like C++ so much. Next to that there's always all kind of solutions you can do with polymorphism, but my main priorities is speed and reusability.
I'm in the process learning ASM but that's not a big issue now, but when i'm starting to get my projects in condition I might do parts in inline ASM.

[HarryW]

marex, that depends on how time-critical it is. I might use C++ if that's what I was asked to use, but it's more likely I would use Python or VB.

I didn't say anything about C++ r0><ing or anything like that. I just stated some facts/opinions.

I'm a horses-for-courses kind of person in general.

[marex]

honeybee

Reading your answer I must also think you're a
C programmer.

It supprised me a litele to see that there are so
many C/C++ programlmers on VB-World.

After that I'm convinced myselt to buy me some books and
give C/C++ a chance.

It will take months before I finished the study.

Ray

[parksie]

A big thing to realise is that C != C++. Even if you don't use any of the features of C++, there are some big differences internally. I won't go into them here, but read Thinking in C++ and you'll see what I mean

[kovan]

Originally posted by marex
honeybee

Reading your answer I must also think you're a
C programmer.

It supprised me a litele to see that there are so
many C/C++ programlmers on VB-World.

After that I'm convinced myselt to buy me some books and
give C/C++ a chance.

It will take months before I finished the study.

Ray

Tip for you if you going to learn c++ from scratch

1. dont get into any flavours of it (mfc) to begin with
2. unless you are REALLLY good at self teaching
dont even start with c++ on your own, i consider myself a very good self teacher,
but if i did all the c++ i know all by myself
i would still be learning how to make a class properly...
so my suggestion to you is
the least you can do is pay for a introductory course

i hated it at first
i thought it was the worst thing EVER
but now finally i have enough knowledge to make useful things
FINALLY

i never thought i would say this
but hail to c++

[marex]

kovan

I never had any problems with selfstudy, i learned a lot that way.
A course could be better, but if you look at the speed some course will be given, you will come out with a very big headache.
Some teachers think that everybody understand immediately what they meant. For the price of a course i can buy many
good books, so, selfstudy isn't a problem.
Doing it at my time and speed it's much better to learn.
If there are problems or questions, well,
there is always vb world isn't.

cheers

[marex]

honeybee

I am not a hardcore C/C++ programmer, like maybe Parksie is. (Maybe because I don't have any proof, just guesswork )

Yes I'm very curious about the C language, I've ordered
a few books and I'm started.
The "Hello World" program was very easy and believe it or not
it works fine.

Maybe one question, what I see in practical the most C
programs is the statement 'VOID'.
Someone could tell me how to compare that with another
language.

cheers
Ray

[kedaman]

void is a datatype, when you return void from a function, nothing is returned, when you pass void, nothing is passed. When you declare a void pointer, it's not pointing to any specific datatype, which allows you to cast it to anything. Void is not a valid datatype for variables, only void pointers and pointers to them etc..

[kedaman]

Originally posted by honeybee
I am not a hardcore C/C++ programmer, like maybe Parksie is. (Maybe because I don't have any proof, just guesswork )
.

Aah, but there is proof, for the opposite
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...threadid=97909

[parksie]

Sadly, I'm too lazy to be a REAL hardcore programmer

[kedaman]

Ah, I'm too lazy to but that doesn't mean I don't have the Force

[marex]

I'm not lazy but don't have the knowledge.
I could be lazy if it takes too long for knowing all
what you knows.


Ray

[Jotaf98]

Hey, you forgot another language: VB with ASM snippets

I saw this program a while ago on www.planet-source-code.com called Asmippets or something, it has a function to use compiled Assembler code in VB - might be of some interest...

[marex]

VB and Assm......great


I'll take a look at that.




Ray

[parksie]

You shouldn't use void main, because every program MUST return a value to the system. The compiler will either complain, or silently rewrite it as int main and return some arbitrary value.

Even if a function is void, you can still use return, just not for returning a value.

[kedaman]

Originally posted by honeybee


I wouldn't consider void as a data type. It is something like the NULL value in databases. While writing a function, you typically have to specify the data type of the value the function is going to return, the function name and then the list of parameters to be passed to the function with their respective datatypes. In C/C++, if the function does not return anything, you have to indicate it by specifying void as the return value. Also if a function does not accept any formal parameters, you have to specify void as the parameter. Void tells the compiler about the presence of 'nothing'.

void main(void) means the main function does not accept any parameters and does not return anything. So, you cannot pass commandline arguments to this program, and cannot use the return() statement in this function.

.

NULL is a VALID datatype, only assignable to variants. it's purpose is NO VALID DATA but it IS a valid datatype. Void is a datatype which has 3 uses.

[kedaman]

Originally posted by honeybee

I also don't consider the NULL in databases as a value. .

damn right you shouldn't! NULL is a datatype not value!!!

[parksie]

Originally posted by honeybee
kitten, I have written programs with void main(void), so it's a new knowledge to me that the compiler will rewrite it as int main(void) and return an arbitrary value.

I didn't know for a while until I was reading through a C FAQ (can't remember where it was) and found that interesting snippet. When I turned all warnings and ANSI compatibility on in VC++ it wouldn't compile void main().

[filburt1]

Programs think that whenever another program returns with a non-zero value, an error occurred. I used to do void main() for a while, but jeez, return 0; is just one line of code!