I used to be a professional programmer, and not so bad, even if I say so myself!
I wrote a inventory and load balancing system for business...handy that I lived about 1KM from the local college! I'm interested in stuff that I can't do, like encryption, and the visual arts. I'm tempted to insert some ASCII art, but I'm not that bored!
So now, I've read through a VB.net book, and I'm enthusiastic about returning to practice the black art after a long break.
So touch wood, my little plans work...and I get to code some games. That's my ambition.
Me.stateifmind = 'optimistic'.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 24th, 2024 at 02:46 PM.
Thanks FunkyDexter. What's your background, if I may be so bold? (Spiffy).
I started VB just playing on with a free version on the front of a magazine, or somewhere or other ;-)
So a piece of play became more serious, and I thought 'serious software' and proceeded to code an app, a retail system. I found a control to display members and then to display stock. Then I added a booking system, as the original app was for a hire shop or library. I did the booking system after I'd experimented with lending an item for a period of time.
The control I needed, and couldn't believe, was the Listview. It was implemented as a crucially important part of the interface. God love em, M$ can't half code a control I thought, back then. LOL, (or more like - where did they steal it from!?)
So it just grew in stability and features, and near the end I added a bar code scanner I got from an American company, which I was very pleased about, and I found it was way better than typing in numbers.
My app must have been the first to implement a right mouse click drag. Claim to fame that is.
In the process I found out what was wrong with Windows 98 - the listviews didn't refresh (after a file op) but in my app ALL the relevant listviews would be updated/refreshed. My windows were all numbered in a consecutive manner.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 24th, 2024 at 01:22 PM.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Good for you! We have a graphical thread about some of our latest VB6 projects if you need any inspiration. Conversely, don't let it put you off!
Forget VB.not. VB6 is the future! At least, it now has one!
Ignore that Philistine.
Still, he does have a point. VB6 might have a future, which is called TwinBasic. It's an impressive project, I just fear that it rests on too narrow a foundation. It's up to you whether or not that's worth a look. Otherwise, .NET is the way to go.
Many people on here have a history similar to yours. I started with BASIC on a TRS-80 Level I, which could do....very little. I didn't do much, at that time, but then decided to learn C and C++ to occupy my mind while fighting alligators (eventually, EVERYTHING becomes routine). That led to VBA, then VB6, VB.NET and others.
And, while I get the name, the subject reminded me more of, "a pleasant-faced man steps up to greet you, he smiles and says he's pleased to meet you..."
An obscure body in the SK system. The inhabitants call it Earth
Posts
7,932
Re: Hello. Pleased to meet you.
.NET is the way to go.
Careful now... you know where this can lead
What's your background
Honestly not very interesting. Degree in my late twenties and worked as a programmer ever since, first as a permy, later as a consultant. Oddly, my more interesting projects have been in SQL rather than VB/C#.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill
Hadoop actually sounds more like the way they greet each other in Yorkshire - Inferrd
I used SQL extensively to fill my listview object (remember classes are like recipes, objects are like cakes - note to self don't eat the keyboard). I used an Access database. SQL was very powerful back in the nineties, has it matured?
and you. I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.....
All advice is offered in good faith only. You are ultimately responsible for the effects of your programs and the integrity of the machines they run on. Anything I post, code snippets, advice, etc is licensed as Public Domain https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Marvin - your Paranoid Android. I always have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side. The first ten million years were the worst........
All advice is offered in good faith only. You are ultimately responsible for the effects of your programs and the integrity of the machines they run on. Anything I post, code snippets, advice, etc is licensed as Public Domain https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
You two are cruel (but the I like you) I liked the fact that a depressed robot infected a spaceship with the blues. Really good book I should definitely buy sometime.
"I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 25th, 2024 at 09:51 AM.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
I've found some code on here I plan to use as an app. Just a game launcher.
I've been out today, despite the storms, which never appeared. My phone got two alerts this morning, nearly putting me off travelling. The floods didn't arrive. I'll see tomorrow whether any other areas were hit. National emergency - are you ready? The gov. wants us to have emergency bottled water and a wind-up radio just in case. Presumably the radio will give us advice, but having seen George Romero films, they won't do much good. Remember 28 Days Later? A lot of good the charts would be, or some Evian, to be honest. I'll just borrow a radio I think. Last year they said that there was a chance of the electrical system shutting down, due to the Ukraine war. Didn't happen...phew! That's something we should be glad of - government misinformation.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 26th, 2024 at 05:40 PM.
I've found some code on here I plan to use as an app. Just a game launcher.
I've been out today, despite the storms, which never appeared. My phone got two alerts this morning, nearly putting me off travelling. The floods didn't arrive. I'll see tomorrow whether any other areas were hit. National emergency - are you ready? The gov. wants us to have emergency bottled water and a wind-up radio just in case. Presumably the radio will give us advice, but having seen George Romero films, they won't do much good. Remember 28 Days Later? A lot of good the charts would be, or some Evian, to be honest. I'll just borrow a radio I think. Last year they said that there was a chance of the electrical system shutting down, due to the Ukraine war. Didn't happen...phew! That's something we should be glad of - government misinformation.
Just be sure you have a towel.
One thing about it, though: Which is better, under warn and have people get caught out, or over warn and have people call it misinformation?
When I lived in the Florida Keys, I lived for a few years in a house where my landlady would certainly not heed any warning about hurricanes. I couldn't convince her that she had to evacuate for a Cat 3 or above. For one thing, she believed a storm surge was just 'big waves', which wouldn't matter, as we were on the inside of the keys. I haven't asked her whether or not she saw some of the footage from last summer's hurricanes which showed what a storm surge really was. That house likely would have survived, but she would have been on the roof, with 5-6 feet of water sloshing around inside. That wasn't the worst prediction, either. Some people have suggested that the surge passing through the gaps in the keys would wash out the approaches of all the bridges, potentially leaving the keys cut off from the mainland for months. Will that happen? It depends on exactly how big the surge is and how it hits. If you evacuate and it doesn't happen, it's misinformation. If you don't evacuate and it does happen...you're in big trouble.
The great storm of 1987 was a good example of not warning and then getting a kick in the teeth. Micheal Fish the weather forecaster claimed it was nothing to worry about. Unfortunately it turned out to be a killer.
I feel some sympathy for him, it's a hard job, people seem to forget, and doubtless he'll not have been able to forget that he made a mistake, due to people like me, bringing it up.
Now with global warming there's an alert every few months.
I'm not getting into whether false weather warnings are better or worse than missing a warning, my point was just that accuracy could be better, without a doubt.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 27th, 2024 at 02:21 PM.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
One thing about it, though: Which is better, under warn and have people get caught out, or over warn and have people call it misinformation?
Remember Trump "Over warning". He actually penalized that agency for disagreeing with his "redrawing" the warning. And half of America wants to put that moron back in office...
I'm not getting into whether false weather warnings are better or worse than missing a warning, my point was just that accuracy could be better, without a doubt.
If I had to live my life over again, knowing what I know now, I might have gone into meteorology just because of that point. I have some serious doubts that accuracy really could be better, since weather is such a fascinating chaotic system, but it IS a fascinating chaotic system with all kinds of potential for coding interesting models.
If I had to live my life over again, knowing what I know now, I might have gone into meteorology just because of that point. I have some serious doubts that accuracy really could be better, since weather is such a fascinating chaotic system, but it IS a fascinating chaotic system with all kinds of potential for coding interesting models.
I think they have done a good job of understanding how weather systems and patterns influence the weather. They do a good job of predicting temperatures and winds several days in advance. But predicting the exact time and place of things like thunderstorms are not near as precise. And understandably so. Have you ever watched a timelapse of a doppler weather radar? Thunderstorms can just pop up out of nowhere. As if they have a quantum drive.
A doppler weather radar? Something I'll have to look up. I think the world has gone to sleep at this point. Undaunted I have to go and do it. It starts with thermals and an unstable atmosphere, in stage one. I'll update the thread sometime with an animation. PowerPoint stuff. IF I have the inclination.
All this tornado talk has me in a spin!
Dizzy by Tommy Roe, or a new cover, would be the tune of this thread. The Vic Reeves one is good.
If thermal = true and atmosphere_unstable = true then
REM check phase 2
Else
Is_tornado=false
End if
Phase 2 - you need a strong vertical wind shear, where the winds increase strongly in speed along with height. I'll put that in the code.
If thermal = true and atmosphere_unstable = true then
REM check phase 2
If vertical_wind_shear = true then
REM check phase 3
Else
Is_tornado = false
End if
Else
Is_tornado=false
End if
LOL! I'm really rusty but the code would work. Just before someone comes and corrects this psuedo code, just remember it's just psuedo-code, and I haven't coded anything in months or years.
So I guess the next condition, phase 3 should be evaluated, if you like.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 28th, 2024 at 04:29 AM.
At this point the code could just check all the conditions that a tornado needs to form, in one fell swoop :
If thermals= true and atmosphere_unstable = true and vertical_wind_shear = true then
msgbox "tornado alert!"
Else
REM no twister
End if
You could just say you'll get a tornado will form when the conditions are right. Where's the fun in that!?
Phase 4
If thermals= true and atmosphere_unstable = true and vertical_wind_shear = true and supercell = true then
msgbox "tornado alert!"
Else
REM no twister
End if
Eventually, happy days, the tornado dissipates, and we all live happily ever after.
Humans could spot these things, and measure just where it occured and at what time, then try and get behind it and measure the ground temperature and ambient temperature. Sounds exciting but my age means I can't, and I would need a heavy car. Storm Chasers! On second thoughts Ill need to borrow a tank, not because it won't get blown away, but just they're cool, and I could use it on my bank manager. Ho, ho.
You could plot the two variables onto a graph...like below for example.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 28th, 2024 at 06:16 AM.
Yeah, plot the occurances of the tornado on a graph. With the temperature of the ground vs temperature of the air. I suppose you then get a formula for future occurances of tornadoes, if you have a few thermometer probes monitoring the temperatures. Like the man above said, it'd be nice to try a few algorithms for meteorological purposes. Staying away from chaos systems monitoring. Chaos systems just mean 'Oh no, too many variables,' 'Lets just call it a chaos system' TBH, people who get frightened by chaos are just shandy drinkers.
Last edited by ArthurDent; May 28th, 2024 at 01:55 PM.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by ArthurDent
Re: Hello. Pleased to meet you.
