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Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 10:40pm PDT
Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) wrote:

Dangerous Dave wrote:

Oom Shnibble wrote:

A lot of universitied don't teach C/C++ or Pascal opting instead for Java or C#. This means they don't know how to clean up after themselves in code. This is bad. I also do not like Garbage Collectors. They are dark fucking magic that are not to be trusted. Yes, I know that this attitude is akin to some medieval distrust of black cats or some shit but I choose to be irrational about this. Especially since a lot of developers don't know that they need to dispose of unmanaged resources in C#.


Yeah, but we can't keep introducing students to programming via Pascal. It has zero real-world applications.

You really think so? C and C++ have dreadful string processing routines. I don't know Java or C# well enough to comment but I'm not sure if they do provide as good a set of string processing routines as Pascal does, and I'll bet that if they do, the reason they do is they moved to Pascal-style strings (length is a prefix at the start of the string as opposed to a string being a block of characters ending in a zero byte). I'll spot you any odds that a Pascal application to manage text - especially, say, text searching and text manipulation such as done by word processors and text processors and formatters - will do the job with less trouble, be easier to maintain, and can be written, debugged, tested and implemented faster than one written in C or its derivatives.


Text manipulation was taken over by Perl in the 90s. Python and Ruby are also very good at it.

C (and the derivatives) just happen to be sexier and have more people interested in them.


C isn't sexy, it's just the best. C++ is as sexy as (and has more warts than) the elephant man. If Pascal can't manage to be sexier than either of these languages, well, that's not a point in its favor. The only sexy C derivative is Obj C because Apple.

But Pascal is still going to be a better choice for a number of application environments where someone looks at the work to be done and sees where the advantages are vs. other languages.


Yeah, Pascal was so advantageous that Borland...oh....

I also find it unmitigated gall that says that a university only teach programming languages that are work-relevant as opposed to ones that might allow you to learn how to think better and improve your skills as a programmer. Universities are not supposed to be technical colleges, they should teach more than how to make enough money to pay for three squares a day and a mortgage every month. They should teach you how to think creatively and to see other ways to solve a problem.


Agreed. Pascal doesn't bring anything unique to the table that I can think of, though. To contrast: Scheme isn't relevant, either, but it's so chock full of interesting bits and is backed up by one of the best comp sci texts known to man that its didactic nature is unparalleled.

If the C language had been designed correctly to take off some of the dangerous and bad constructs it could have been a far better language.


You're a fucking idiot. C is the most successful, best designed language ever created. It is portable assembler, and excels in that role. Nothing has replaced it. You should not be using it to write desktop apps in the same way that you should not be assembling furniture from its constituent atoms like it's a fucking Deus Ex nanovirus.

And the bastard language from hell that C++ is might never have been the kind of kluge that it is.


Take two programmers that hate each other and lock them in a room until they agree on something. They will exit the room 1.5 seconds later after simultaneously saying "I hate C++".

I can think of a couple of things: making identifiers case sensitive was the worst possible idea to come along in programming history. Programming is hard enough as it is and requires keeping a lot of things in ones head, now we add to this the idea that you can misspell a variable not only by having the wrong letters, but by the case of the letters even if not misspelled.


FUCK. YOU. Oh, great, now I have TheVar and theVar and thevar and theVAR and THEVAR and tHeVAr and thevaR floating around my codebase because Paresh and my language designer are cunts.

And the use of the equal sign as automatically being an assignment operator is another example of sheer insanity. There is no possible legitimate reason to put an assignment in an IF statement. Thus the construct if a=5 which is generally valid in other languages, always ends up making a equal to 5. Which is probably not what was desired.


Isn't this usually covered by a compiler warning?

No other language has ever had an equal sign in an expression used to assign a value. FORTRAN didn't because it used .EQ.; BASIC didn't because it knew that the only time an = means assignment is when there's a variable on the left; PASCAL got around the problem by using := for assignment, so = always means comparison. Other languages had no problem. C (well, and its derivatives) is the only language that requires == to indicate a comparison.


Fortran and Basic look like shit. "=" and "==" won because of Huffman coding.

It goes back to the days when memory was expensive and you had to find ways to simplify the compiler, and segregating assignment from comparison is one way to do it.


What? NT

-/ES/-
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Jesus Fucking Christ. People. by Oom Shnibble 04/17/2012, 11:10pm PDT NEW
    Context? by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 12:57am PDT NEW
        Re: Context? by Oom Shnibble 04/18/2012, 1:43am PDT NEW
    I have some news for you, Om by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/18/2012, 1:07am PDT NEW
        Um by Fullofkitttens 04/18/2012, 5:14am PDT NEW
            This is correct. You're a much better programmer than TDARCOS by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:26am PDT NEW
                Oh, and storage space is also increased by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:36am PDT NEW
                    Using a tree structure is an overcomplicated method, at least now by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:22am PDT NEW
                        You're a disaster by Entropy Stew 04/19/2012, 1:06pm PDT NEW
                            I forgot to mention your insane touting of this as a better approach vs trees NT by Entropy Stew 04/19/2012, 1:35pm PDT NEW
                            Actually, I know what I'm doing. Do you what you are doing? by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 7:43pm PDT NEW
                                Your data structure is analogous to a hash table with 27 buckets by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 1:02am PDT NEW
                                    Re: Your data structure is analogous to a hash table with 27 buckets by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:43pm PDT NEW
                                        Get dunked, son by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 9:26pm PDT NEW
                                            Re: Get dunked, son by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 2:28am PDT NEW
                                                Oh Jesus I get it now. by The Happiness Engine 04/21/2012, 9:02am PDT NEW
                                                    Oh, it's just a really shitty skip list, then NT by Entropy Stew 04/21/2012, 9:26am PDT NEW
                                                There's more than one way to implement a hash table by Entropy Stew 04/21/2012, 10:40am PDT NEW
                                    His data structure is analogous to 27 buckets of shit. NT by Orange Devil Bat 05/12/2012, 9:13am PDT NEW
                        hey tansin by jeep 04/21/2012, 6:10pm PDT NEW
                            Re: hey tansin by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 6:07am PDT NEW
                                Re: hey tansin by jeep 04/22/2012, 8:10am PDT NEW
                                    you would not believe the fucking scrub phds I've been handed to work with by jeep 04/22/2012, 8:19am PDT NEW
                                        PhD is the rubber stamp indicating either greatness or utter uselessness by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 10:18am PDT NEW
                                            I've learned to avoid the master's ones altogether by jeep 04/22/2012, 6:36pm PDT NEW
                            Re: hey tansin by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/24/2012, 1:53am PDT NEW
                                Re: hey tansin by jeep 04/24/2012, 5:57am PDT NEW
            What is Pascal and why it is used by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 9:31am PDT NEW
                Pascal is a terrible tinkertoy dead programming language. NT by Too boring, didn't read 04/19/2012, 4:26pm PDT NEW
                Pascal/Delphi by Oom Shnibble 04/19/2012, 11:34pm PDT NEW
                    Also (Mini-rant) by Oom Shnibble 04/19/2012, 11:44pm PDT NEW
                        Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Dangerous Dave 04/20/2012, 7:20am PDT NEW
                            The schools around here (Big Ten) start with Python then go to C++. by Fullofkitttens 04/20/2012, 7:39am PDT NEW
                            Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 6:22pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Dangerous Dave 04/20/2012, 9:37pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 10:40pm PDT NEW
                        Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:54pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 9:44pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 4:24pm PDT NEW
                                    Corection, I mean "one block of 511K free" in above article NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 4:24pm PDT NEW
                                    That's just a smart allocator. Even C has them by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 5:32am PDT NEW
                                        It's still automatic garbage collection by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/24/2012, 2:00am PDT NEW
                                            No it isn't, you ignorant motherfucker. How can you be wrong so often? by Entropy Stew 04/24/2012, 3:46am PDT NEW
                                                So you really think insulting someone is going to get them to listen to you? NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/27/2012, 5:37pm PDT NEW
                                                    Pretty sure he's serious about the ignorant part, maybe even the mother fucker! NT by Worm 04/27/2012, 6:04pm PDT NEW
                                                        I never fucked my mother. She charged too much. NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/10/2012, 6:07pm PDT NEW
                                                    OH GOD HIS FEELINGS NT by Entropy Stew 04/27/2012, 6:36pm PDT NEW
                                                SPOILERS: He so fucked up the cheeseburger. It's amazing, you should check it ou NT by The Happiness Engine 04/27/2012, 8:53pm PDT NEW
                    Re: Pascal/Delphi by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:34pm PDT NEW
        What the fuck does this have to do with pointers? NT by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:44am PDT NEW
            Re: What the fuck does this have to do with pointers? by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/18/2012, 9:07am PDT NEW
                Exactly right, Jonsey, you nailed it! by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:32am PDT NEW
                    I got yer back, Commander. NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/19/2012, 11:55am PDT NEW
                Counterpoint by Ray of Light 05/06/2012, 1:49pm PDT NEW
                    HAHAHAHAH by Entropy Stew 05/06/2012, 5:35pm PDT NEW
                        Re: HAHAHAHAH by jeep 05/10/2012, 6:41pm PDT NEW
                            also I hope you mean I don't sound like I went to school for cs by jeep 05/10/2012, 6:42pm PDT NEW
                                Neither did I NT by Entropy Stew 05/10/2012, 8:16pm PDT NEW
                                    Your degree is in scare quotes! NT by We Miss QB 05/10/2012, 8:33pm PDT NEW
                                    I did! NT by Scot Thompson, ex-Yahoo CEO 05/14/2012, 2:38am PDT NEW
                    Oh please, this has nothing to do with application development by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/10/2012, 6:44pm PDT NEW
                        Well I definitely feel safe now *hands over millions of credit card numbers* by Entropy Stew 05/10/2012, 9:36pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Well I definitely feel safe now *hands over millions of credit card numbers* by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/12/2012, 8:43am PDT NEW
                                You know less about security than you do data structures NT by Entropy Stew 05/12/2012, 4:11pm PDT NEW
                        Hi, my name is Ray by Ray of Light 05/14/2012, 1:49am PDT NEW
                            Re: Hi, my name is Ray by jeep 05/14/2012, 1:28pm PDT NEW
                            TDARCOS: wrong enough to summon Ray back from 2fort by Entropy Stew 05/14/2012, 6:19pm PDT NEW
                                Accessing one item at a time by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/16/2012, 3:28am PDT NEW
                                    Context: it matters NT by Entropy Stew 05/16/2012, 4:04pm PDT NEW
    Part Two of this. by Oom Shnibble 05/25/2012, 9:19am PDT NEW
        Re: Part Two of this. by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/27/2012, 9:51am PDT NEW
            What? Isn't the issue that you can't cast to an unrelated class? NT by Entropy Stew 05/27/2012, 1:34pm PDT NEW
                yes by Rafiki 05/27/2012, 1:58pm PDT NEW
                    I don't get how TDARCOS understood it was casting, then failed to understand the NT by Entropy Stew 05/27/2012, 2:05pm PDT NEW
                        I think I did get most of it by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/28/2012, 10:57pm PDT NEW
                            He is close enough for government work -nt- NT by Oom Shnibble 05/29/2012, 11:56am PDT NEW
    The Future of Perl NT by Kerr 02/21/2025, 2:37pm PST NEW
 
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