Programming Languages

[Ambrose]

Do any of you know any programming languages (HTML dosn't count)? I have some knowledge in Python and C++, Python is slower than C++ but I would say that its easier. I am currently really chasing C++, Both are really powerful languages, Especially for how high level it is, Python. So what about you guys? What do you guys n gals know?

 

[Nick]

I know markup languages like HTML and CSS extremely well, and a tad of Javascript and PHP, but I haven't coded in ages, and withoout practising programming the knowledge gets buried. I enjoyed programming, but life has been turning out differently that it was two years ago. Not much time or need left for website coding.

Out of interest, anyone here still use Perl, or is it really outdated nowdays? :D

 

[Ambrose]

I know markup languages like HTML and CSS extremely well, and a tad of Javascript and PHP, but I haven't coded in ages, and withoout practising programming the knowledge gets buried. I enjoyed programming, but life has been turning out differently that it was two years ago. Not much time or need left for website coding.

Out of interest, anyone here still use Perl, or is it really outdated nowdays? :D

Well C++ and Python arent exactly website coders. They are literal program creators. You can make games, Graphics and all kinds of different stuff with a C++ program. Its merely learning the syntax, OH and the super important part of flow charts and KNOWING HOW TO USE IT!

 

[evenifigoalone]

I picked up a tiny, tiny bit of CSS and BBC from using the internet for several years, but nothing impressive. It looks complicated. :eeeekkk

 

[Ambrose]

I picked up a tiny, tiny bit of CSS and BBC from using the internet for several years, but nothing impressive. It looks complicated. :eeeekkk

Naa its not that complicated, You just have to learn the syntax (The stuff you type in for code). Some high level programming languages can actually be pretty straight forward, If anyone was looking to get started with something easy but powerful I would direct them to python.

 

[Nick]

Well C++ and Python arent exactly website coders. They are literal program creators. You can make games, Graphics and all kinds of different stuff with a C++ program. Its merely learning the syntax, OH and the super important part of flow charts and KNOWING HOW TO USE IT!

Generally true, but the Lightbox script uses a bit of python. But that doesn't exclude php from being a programming language, which it is.

I've never delved into C or anything like that. All my coding work was for websites.

I picked up a tiny, tiny bit of CSS and BBC from using the internet for several years, but nothing impressive. It looks complicated. :eeeekkk

HTML and CSS are generally pretty simple. Because the syntax is generally pretty different to programming or scripting languages, it's difficult to compare. I'm a very visual person and not very mathematical, which is probably why I love CSS and could never get deep into stuff like php and python.

I've you've got the time, it's fun to learn

 

[stovebolts]

Well C++ and Python arent exactly website coders. They are literal program creators. You can make games, Graphics and all kinds of different stuff with a C++ program. Its merely learning the syntax, OH and the super important part of flow charts and KNOWING HOW TO USE IT!

I'd have a hard time programming cout<< "paper bag"; anymore, but I learned C++ in Unix with the Vi editor. Icky! I really love Ultra Edit! Bluefish is a free editor that does a very good job too and you can get it to run in Windows too.

BTW, you can use C++ in your html very efficiently to connect and manipulate a variety of databases etc.

 

[Ambrose]

BTW, you can use C++ in your html very efficiently to connect and manipulate a variety of databases etc.

Yeah I knew that but thats not its only use of course, Like you mentioned. C++ can be used for almost anything you like, It just writes programs. (Not exactly sure what its boundarys are exactly though.) Not yet anyway. Oh yeah and Nick, I just happen to be a VERY mathematical person so that kind of stuff is great for me.. lol and I love learning it and using it.

 

[stovebolts]

Oh yeah. Now your making me remember a program we had to write in school. It was an elevator program and it had to simulate a 5 story building.

Think about it. To evoke the elevator, you have to have random people pushing the call button. Some will want to go up, some will want to go down. If your on the top floor, you can only go down, if your on the bottom floor, you can only go up.

You'll need:
1. Call buttons. (up and down)
2. Doors (open and close)
3. Lights and bells
4. Floors (5)
5. Random people on each floor.
6. People getting on and off the elevator from various floors.


Sounds easy, and you only need a few functions and a couple of array's (one dynamic and the other static) along with an assortment of variables. It's a great test of logic and can be streamlined easily.

Flow would go:
Create person on random floor.
Person calls elevator
Elevator arrives at floor.
Bell dings, light goes on.
Person selects floor.
Elevator proceeds to designated floor.
Elevator stops at additional floor only picking up passengers traveling in the same direction as passengers already on elevator.
Passengers by passed go into holding queue (first come first serve) when the elevator reverses flow.

Results display from the command prompt. This is a text only program cout << "Down button pressed by user x on floor x";
cout << "Elevator arrives at floor x"
cout << "Bell rings and light displays floor x"
cout << "Door opens "
cout << "User enters elevator and presses floor x"
cout << "Door closes and elevator travels to floor x"
cout << "Elevator stops at floor x to pick up passenger x"
cout << "Bell rings and light displays floor x"

You get the idea.

Sounds easy enough huh?

 

[Ambrose]

Oh yeah. Now your making me remember a program we had to write in school. It was an elevator program and it had to simulate a 5 story building.

Think about it. To evoke the elevator, you have to have random people pushing the call button. Some will want to go up, some will want to go down. If your on the top floor, you can only go down, if your on the bottom floor, you can only go up.

You'll need:
1. Call buttons. (up and down)
2. Doors (open and close)
3. Lights and bells
4. Floors (5)
5. Random people on each floor.
6. People getting on and off the elevator from various floors.


Sounds easy, and you only need a few functions and a couple of array's (one dynamic and the other static) along with an assortment of variables. It's a great test of logic and can be streamlined easily.

Flow would go:
Create person on random floor.
Person calls elevator
Elevator arrives at floor.
Bell dings, light goes on.
Person selects floor.
Elevator proceeds to designated floor.
Elevator stops at additional floor only picking up passengers traveling in the same direction as passengers already on elevator.
Passengers by passed go into holding queue (first come first serve) when the elevator reverses flow.

Results display from the command prompt. This is a text only program cout << "Down button pressed by user x on floor x";
cout << "Elevator arrives at floor x"
cout << "Bell rings and light displays floor x"
cout << "Door opens "
cout << "User enters elevator and presses floor x"
cout << "Door closes and elevator travels to floor x"
cout << "Elevator stops at floor x to pick up passenger x"
cout << "Bell rings and light displays floor x"

You get the idea.

Sounds easy enough huh?

What kind of school was it? It wasn't high school was it? I feel like I'm being challenged! Just let me learn some more syntax and I will take up your challenge! I need something to stimulate my mind anyway! After Ive learned essential syntax I will first make a flow chart algorithm, (After examining my problem and steps of course) Then finally write the code. Oh yeah and debugging. I will PM you when I have a finished project lol.

 

[WIP]

Does Basic countl? Okay, now my age is showing through. :D

 

[Nick]

Does Basic countl? Okay, now my age is showing through. :D

Ahhh, I forgot about basic! We learnt it a bit as an intro to programming in my information systems class

 

[Ambrose]

Does Basic countl? Okay, now my age is showing through. :D

Of course Basic counts! LOL

 

[stovebolts]

High School? ha ha ha! I think we got our first Atari in High School :biglol

I went to College for Client Server Programming back in 98-99 majoring in C++ and Oracle.

BTW, you'll need a random seed generator :yes

I'd keep it simple and just pop one person at a time. When he gets off the floor he wanted to go to, then pop another random person on a random floor going to another random floor. When you've done that, then pop two or three people at a time and really have some fun!

BTW, I didn't go into programming after college believe it or not. I asked God to put me where he wanted me and while I'm in I.T., I'm far, far away from programming. In short, if you don't use it, you'll loose it. I can still write the flow chart, but I'd have a hard time writing the program now simply because of syntax. Fortunatly, I remember the tools I needed so the syntax would come back relatively quick.

 

[Ambrose]

High School? ha ha ha! I think we got our first Atari in High School :biglol

I went to College for Client Server Programming back in 98-99 majoring in C++ and Oracle.

BTW, you'll need a random seed generator :yes

I'd keep it simple and just pop one person at a time. When he gets off the floor he wanted to go to, then pop another random person on a random floor going to another random floor. When you've done that, then pop two or three people at a time and really have some fun!

BTW, I didn't go into programming after college believe it or not. I asked God to put me where he wanted me and while I'm in I.T., I'm far, far away from programming. In short, if you don't use it, you'll loose it. I can still write the flow chart, but I'd have a hard time writing the program now simply because of syntax. Fortunatly, I remember the tools I needed so the syntax would come back relatively quick.

Yeah I need to learn a lot more about syntax before I take on this project. I am currently learning about creating classes. Yes, Im a novice. But not as novice as other people learning about classes. Why? Because I have gone IN DEPTH into about every detail of the syntax and how it all works up to this point. What all the syntax is really telling all the hardware to do and all of this stuff. When certain kind of variables are assigned at linking or runtime. LOTS AND LOTS about functions, And as to how they work and fit into the program. Along with the hardware. So I don't just know "How to make stuff show up on the screen". I hope to continue learning in this manner and then continue on of course. lol. But yeah Ill do it lol.

 

[yoamocuy]

Does matlab count? It's kinda like C++ but less structured :P

I know quite a bit of VHDL as well.

 

[DarkHorseRising]

I forced myself (was forced) to learn R this year; not a traditional programming language, but for complex algorithms it's essentially the same thing.

 

[cyberjosh]

Hmm... Let's see.


The first language I ever learned was BASIC (unless DOS batch scripting counts) in high school (some Texas Instruments calculators have old BASIC programming capabilities built in to write new applications), then at my two year college I did a little bit of C++ and VB.NET.

A classmate and I co-wrote for an exam the card game War in C++ with a C# (.NET) front end. We stole the card back graphics from Windows solitaire (they are just BMPs sitting in a directory) but made our own card faces in photoshop. We were the only two people to have to write real code and who were allowed to work together on an exam because we took our class curriculum requirements backwards and had already taken C++ and VB.NET before the "Pseudocode/Introduction to Programming Class" so while everyone else wrote a pseudocode exam on paper our teacher gave us "advanced" students a completely different exam. It was fun... but incomplete. The way that you could tell that you won War was that there was an unhandled error exception thrown to the screen, because we never figured out how to break the main loop with a "win" scenario in the time allotted . Maybe not that advanced after all... I still have the original source code after all these years and have been meaning to go back and fix it for old time's sake.

Then when I transferred to a four year college I learned Java (LOTS of Java) and Perl (the best thing that ever happened to me). We had to take one class where we had to learn Lisp for two weeks (eek!) - my brain does not do Lisp.

My current job at a genetics research institute uses tons of Perl and Python. I don't know Python very well but have had to debug a few things in it at work. Our core software pipeline code is in Perl and Python and the tools it runs are written in C++ (moving toward Java now). I program mostly in Perl (with some occasional Linux Bash scripting), and was doing some just yesterday. All our code is for a Linux cluster environment and is meant to automate or speed up common tasks. For that scripting languages are very handy.

P.S. For fun several years ago I got DarkBasic to do a little 3D game programming. Now you can get Dark Basic Professional for free! It is a cool and rather robust language in the same family as BASIC and Visual Basic.

Despite all this, I am not really a programmer. I'm much better as a hardware/networking admin. I can program, but it takes me a while to produce the same thing that others can produce very quickly. I wish code came to me intuitively like it does for others though.

 

[cyberjosh]

I forced myself (was forced) to learn R this year; not a traditional programming language, but for complex algorithms it's essentially the same thing.

R is very heavily used by our genetics scientists at work for producing statistical analysis of their results. Many of the graphs they create from the R tools actually end up in their published papers. I know zero about how R works internally though, I've only had to install new library packages for users when they need them.

What do you use it for application wise?

 

[cyberjosh]

Does matlab count? It's kinda like C++ but less structured :P

I know quite a bit of VHDL as well.

Huh, I had never heard of VHDL until you mentioned it here. I looked it up and sounds quite low-level. I suppose the closest I've gotten to low-level programming (other than an assembly class I took) is some Ladder Logic Programming on an Allen Bradley PLC in an Pre-engineering class I took. It was quite fun to tinker with. My uncle's company uses PLCs in almost all the machines they build so I've seen them in action for large machines as well. What do you use VHDL for in your work?