Personal computing discussed

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My favorite language is?

BASIC (Visual or other)
10 (14%)
Pascal (Delphi, Lylix)
6 (8%)
C
12 (17%)
C++
23 (32%)
Java
6 (8%)
LISP
1 (1%)
ADA
1 (1%)
FORTRAN
1 (1%)
COBOL
2 (3%)
Others (PROLOG, Assembly, or even wierder....)
10 (14%)
 
Total votes: 72
 
HowardDrake
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Favorite Language

Thu Oct 31, 2002 10:14 pm

I figure by posting this, I accomplish 2 things. Bring awareness to the board, and find out what's out there :).
No wonder television's a medium. It's so seldom rare or well done. -Mighty Mouse
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God in Training
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Thu Oct 31, 2002 11:55 pm

Not as much of a programmer as I'd like to be. I had to say BASIC if only because that is what I originally learned on (not Visual Basic, but BASIC on an AppleIIe). I also learned PASCAL and promptly forgot it when I never used it again.

I'm currently working through a book on C++, and it may supersede BASIC once I learn enough to get something accomplished.
Idealist at work.
 
yarbo
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Fri Nov 01, 2002 1:06 am

assembly language (for the LC-2) sucks
<a href=http://www.gentoo.org>Gentoo GNU/Linux</a>
 
Doc Oc
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Fri Nov 01, 2002 3:25 am

Had to vote for Pascal. Not particularly fond of typing BEGIN and END instead of braces, but in my job I always end up having to build a GUI along with my program, and I like VCL a lot better than Swing. I am undecided about MFC. Qt is nice, but my boss won't let me use it.
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. (Groucho Marx)
 
JohnnyQ
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Fri Nov 01, 2002 3:41 am

Had to vote for Pascal as well.. The last time I wrote any code was for Highschool Computer Science class. There were two modules in CS: Hardware and Programming. Let's just say that I passed on my hardware marks.

I'd like to get into programming again, I know I'd be a whole lot more dedicated than I was back in school. (Being forced to do it just didn't work for me. It's like English Lit: If you want someone to hate an author, force them to read his books...)

JQ
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Forge
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Fri Nov 01, 2002 8:16 am

C++ for Dummies loves you.

:)
 
liquidsquid
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Fri Nov 01, 2002 11:12 am

I had to vote for C because the small platforms I develop on. C++ encourages bloat if you take advantage of the++ features. I like to program assembly on small Mot processors due to the challange of making a 3K rom part do loads of floating point math (Watts to dBm conversions) see the following for something I recently finished.

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bi ... =PM-Series

On the PC I think I am going to make the conversion to Delphi from VB for quick utilities because VB.NET doesn't allow easy use of the DirectX interface like older versions did, and VB.NET requires too many changes to existing programs. If I have to change, I may as well change to something better.

-LS
 
boobyne
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Fri Nov 01, 2002 11:28 am

I had to pick Basic because it just paid for my wife's Post Graduate Degree, which will in turn will benefit me greatly. In fact, she just doubled her salary, matched mine, and found a job in a great place to live. Hey, that's why you keep learning, right? Let's hear it for Basic!
 
Aphasia
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Sun Nov 03, 2002 9:22 am

Voted C++ as that is what ive used mostly, the Motorola ASM was fun though.
 
fc34
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Tue Nov 05, 2002 4:53 am

I didnt know what to choose, since I like so many languages. I guess however, that my favorite one would have to be assembly(small size, and can accomplish almost anything), then BASIC(on days that im lazy), and C++ for most of the programs that I write.
 
Captain Ned
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Tue Nov 05, 2002 11:13 am

Digital/Dartmouth EDU 250 BASIC, learned in the late 70's on the PDP-8 in my high school.

10 PRINT "BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, IT'LL BE OUT OF PAPER"
20 GOTO 10
99 END

Programs were entered (and saved, via punch tape) on an honest-to-god Teletype. Those were the days.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
henry44
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Tue Nov 05, 2002 11:33 am

FORTH forever !!!!!!!!

I started with BASIC and an Altair then moved to COBOL and DEC stuff at the Univ. of AZ in the 70's. Hush Hush DOD stuff. We got all the best hardware. I then messed around with controller routines for imaging devices (giagantic telescopes) built using FORTH. It's a stack language like the HP series of handheld calculators. Having familiarity with FORTH made it easy to hack the HP's.

Unfortunatlly, I left that area and entered public education. Having no original thoughts for many years, I'm back to get a PhD in Math and am haveing to relearn to to program.
 
Pauly
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Sat Nov 09, 2002 5:01 pm

Pascal's lovely. Everybody should learn Pascal before any other language...
 
horst250
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no perl?

Sun Nov 10, 2002 1:15 am

no perl hackers out here? not the best language evar, but still a lot of fun to program in... also java, great for web apps (server side), does xml count?
 
Orion
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Mon Nov 11, 2002 12:10 pm

Hrm, no C# or Visual FoxPro?

VFP - Database, OOP, Great GUI and more. Derived from the dBase days but has gone on to be MUCH more. Above all, it cleans up after itself.

C# - *shrugs* It's new, interesting, we'll see how well it does...
 
Entroper
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Tue Nov 12, 2002 7:26 am

Pauly wrote:
Pascal's lovely. Everybody should learn Pascal before any other language...

Learned Pascal after I learned C/C++. It seemed cumbersome and impotent. Became easier as I used it more often, but I don't think I could ever describe the language as "lovely". :-?
Entroper
 
JohnnyQ
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Tue Nov 12, 2002 8:01 am

Entroper wrote:
Pauly wrote:
Pascal's lovely. Everybody should learn Pascal before any other language...

Learned Pascal after I learned C/C++. It seemed cumbersome and impotent. Became easier as I used it more often, but I don't think I could ever describe the language as "lovely". :-?


This is going to sound weird but: whenever I see someone's first post I always have this feeling of immense fatherly pride. Like: "Auuww, loook, another gerbil decided to throw off the cloak of anonymity, crawl out of the hole of obscurity and join the regulars out in the blissful TR-forum sunshine."

So, are you folding for the team yet?

:D Boy, do I need sleep, or maybe sunshine. meh

JQ
Slave to the Bar.
 
bendsley
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Thu Dec 05, 2002 2:00 am

Perl and PHP own me.
 
al_whinery
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AWK ! esp TAWK

Tue Dec 24, 2002 9:45 pm

I started on COBOL then: Mini-assembly, basic, fortran, DEC assem, C, MASM, C++, AWK, TAWK, VB, java.
TAWK is the best for handling text files.
 
muyuubyou
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Fri Dec 27, 2002 12:13 pm

TAWK used to be the best for text files. Perl is :D

BTW C++ sucks and I have a lot of experience with that.

C rocks, Java too. C++ is a half-assed piece of crap.
no sig
 
Orion
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Fri Dec 27, 2002 12:17 pm

I once heard a quote from the guy who came up with the idea of object oriented C, "I know what object oriented is, and let me tell you, C++ was not what I had in mind!". :wink:

LOL
 
mac_h8r1
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 4:16 pm

C++!!!!!!!

#include<iostream.h>

int main()
{
for(int x; x<3000; x++)
{
cout<<"I will not use redundant, self-incrementing loops in my code."<<endl;
}
return 0;
}
 
Craig P.
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 4:57 pm

Fortran has been sentence-cased since 1990.

mac_h8r1, you should use the standard iostreams. And your code exhibits undefined behavior, because you never initialize x (the uninitialized representation could, I believe, be a trap value).

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    for (int x = 0; x < 3000; ++x)
        std::cout << "I will not use redundant, self-incrementing loops in my code." << std::endl;
}


muyuubyou wrote:
C++ is a half-assed piece of crap.


I'd be interested in hearing your justification for this statement.
 
mac_h8r1
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 5:05 pm

x is initialized in the for statement.

for(int x; x<3000; x++)

plus, the std::cout and std::endl need not be used, as this is a very simple piece of code, plus, it works!
 
Craig P.
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 7:58 pm

x is NOT initialized. It is declared, then used uninitialized. Try running that code through your favorite debugger, and you will find that x starts with an arbitrary value.

In order for it to be initialized, your loop statement would have to look like mine.

Also, that this is a very simple piece of code is a poor excuse to use the classical iostreams rather than the standard iostreams. "It works" is incredibly vague... and it won't "work" forever, on all compilers. As an example, Microsoft is planning to phase out the classical iostreams with the 8.0 version of their compiler.
 
mac_h8r1
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 8:11 pm

crap, i completely forgot about that
man, that's what 2 months of vacation does to the brain

you're right

but with the iostream commands, we've not been taught to use the std::... stuff in my computer science class, because the college board and AP testers don't expect us to use it. This is the last year that the test will be on C++. Starting next year, AP comp sci will be Java, when we'll use the LearningIO package.
 
danny e.
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 8:50 pm

C rocks, Java too. C++ is a half-assed piece of crap


that has to be one of the stupidest things i have ever heard.
C++ is merely C with objects... which makes it immensly better.
Java is just C++ for dummies.

wwaaa wwaaa we are afraid of pointers waaa waaaa :)
lol

yes i am being facious just a tad bit..
You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid.
 
Craig P.
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Sat Jan 04, 2003 10:19 pm

mac_h8r1 wrote:
but with the iostream commands, we've not been taught to use the std::... stuff in my computer science class, because the college board and AP testers don't expect us to use it.


That's pretty ridiculous. The library is part of the language spec. So are namespaces.

Actually, though, doesn't the AP test eschew the library entirely in favor of a few classes of their own?
 
mac_h8r1
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Sun Jan 05, 2003 3:41 am

Yeah, they throw in the APSTRING, APVECTOR, and APMATRIX files
 
MaximusStuntus
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Wed Jan 08, 2003 11:18 pm

Do I have to be limited to just 1 favorite?

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