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The Programming Thread

Started by Renegnicat, October 27, 2009, 05:10:25 PM

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Renegnicat

October 27, 2009, 05:10:25 PM
When I was about 12, I begged my parents to get me this large technical manual on C++ Programming, and read it voraciously. The book was like an alient language to me, spouting off all this stuff that I couldn't imagine. (I think the internet was one year away when I had finished it.

I read the whole book without ever once writing a piece of code, and for good reason, too. I was a poor mexican that didn't even own a computer. It was a very surreal experience. Then one day, we got a computer the year compuserve was established. A little later than that, when I was about 16, I downloaded a free compiler from our dial-up connection overnight.

The rest, as they say, is history. I'm fairly well versed in Command-line programming, functions, pointers(that was crazy). Recently I learned of data structures in programming, about two-three years ago, and so I was really excited.
I'll probably start programming again. Right now, I'm having difficulty deciding just what I should program, as my skills are nowhwere near professional level, but I don't need to start with something completely simple, like tic-tac-toe or anything.

I'm also thinking about learning assembly!

Anyways, this thread is a fork from A|P's Alcoholism thread(go A|P! I'm rooting for you!) Talk about programming, or your latest project, or if you have a question about the subject I can try to answer it. Just in general computer programming talk, really, if you know what I mean. Commence!  :pop:
[size=135]The best thing to do is reflect, understand, apreciate, and consider.[/size]

AlP

#1
October 27, 2009, 05:31:15 PM
I learned when I was young too. I think I was 8 when I got my first computer. In those days computers came with programming manuals. So I learned BASIC, then C when I was about 12, C++ at 16 and a whole bunch since. My favorite is Java. It's much easier and better designed for most things than C++ and the syntax is similar enough to C++ that it doesn't take much time to learn for a C++ programmer. I suggest seeing if you prefer it. LoneMateria prefers C#. They're both good.
"I rebel -- therefore we exist." - Camus

LoneMateria

#2
October 27, 2009, 05:40:43 PM
I really didn't find computer programming until High School.  I went to a Technical High School where the only computer class offered was CISCO Networking (which I still hate to this day).  After I was in that class for a while (I think like a year because you couldn't change your electives once you picked it) my buddy told me he wanted to be a computer programmer.  Once I found out what it was I wanted to be one too.  Something about making the computer do exactly what you tell it too was real appealing to me.

I got a book on C++ which I only read like 2 chapters into it.  I had fun messing with code later in the book and I never really got back to the book.  After a while a different friend I met later wanted to do game programming ... and being a gamer I was on board.  I didn't start to program until I was in a 2 year college.  There I got my A.A.S. Degree in Computer Programming (going to work on my bs once I find a job ... stupid florida has no freaking work for me).  I took fun classes while I was there.  I excelled at C++ (until I got to pointers that is ... i fucking hate pointers with all my being).  I took Java and C# the same semester and although they are essentially the same language I like C# much better.  Probably because that language doesn't have any pointers in it :-D.  We never hit the number of students to take a Visual Basic class but when I took game programming 1 we used Dark Basic which was a shitty, shitty, shitty language but it was fun.  We broke off into teams and created a 2D game (we did a small RPG type game).  I'm drawing inspiration from that shit language for the game i'm currently trying to make ... by myself >.<.  In game programming 2 we learned XNA and it ended up not getting many people so we did a directed study.  It was fun we made a 3D Asteroids game.  XNA (if you dont know) is Microsoft's game programming language, its used to make games for the Xbox 360 (which we never got a chance to test to see if it would work on it... our teacher promised a 360 to use but never delivered).

Anyway i've been talking about making my own game for forever but I just haven't done it (laziness ... damnit).  I've finally started to work on it.  It's in Java since my buddy who does Music Production work is supposed to be helping and he uses a MAC (Cross platform baby ... that and C# doesn't work on MAC).  Its going to be a bejeweled type game with a mix of 2 other games.  The game is going to be split screen at the bottom will be the bejeweled game board.  At the top will be space ships (yes its a space game ... sort of)  Once you match 3 lasers at the bottom (or whatever tile i will depict for weapons) your ship will fire at the enemy ships.  After 3 turns the computer has 3 turns to fire back and whoever is destroyed loses.  Then like in Puzzle Quest there are going to be abilities on the side that you can choose from once you match enough of the colors, these will let you fire special weapons, launch fighters or whatever.  I have a lot of work to do on it but hopefully it will be awesome when its done.
Quote from: "Richard Lederer"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages
Quote from: "Demosthenes"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Quote from: "Oscar Wilde"Truth, in matters of religion, is simpl

Tom62

#3
October 27, 2009, 07:05:57 PM
I started out with Basic on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1983. Via Turbo Basic (1988) and M$ Professional Basic (1991), I went to M$ Visual Basic version 3 (1993). Since VB ran so incredibly slow on my home PC, I switched over to Delphi. I barely used Basic again ever since. In the 90's, I also had a short love affair with Foxpro and other xbase dialects (anyone here who remembers Clipper or the disastrous DBase IV?) and a long hate affair with Cobol. For those of you, who don't know that evil language, I can only say that Cobol is suitable for masochists only. Since 2001, I mainly program in Java.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

LoneMateria

#4
October 27, 2009, 07:11:35 PM
Every programming teacher i've ever had say COBOL is an awful language.  I imagine programming with it is like letting someone run your nuts over with their car.  Not very fun.  Has anyone here used Python?  My buddy did game programming with it in Ohio (he used pygame).  He loved it but I never was able to use it ... something about my vista sucking ass. ( I had it about a week on my XP compie before it died.)
Quote from: "Richard Lederer"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages
Quote from: "Demosthenes"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Quote from: "Oscar Wilde"Truth, in matters of religion, is simpl

AlP

#5
October 28, 2009, 12:59:45 AM
COBOL is not the worst language. INTERCAL is the worst language. You must read the INTERCAL manual! It is the funniest programming language manual ever written =). I sometimes read it at work and I annoy people because I can't help but chuckle.
"I rebel -- therefore we exist." - Camus

LoneMateria

#6
October 28, 2009, 01:09:42 AM
My head is hurting just reading it and I can't quit laughing.  The squiggle lol.  I can't believe someone came up with that language either.  Probably the same person who wrote that manual.
Quote from: "Richard Lederer"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages
Quote from: "Demosthenes"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Quote from: "Oscar Wilde"Truth, in matters of religion, is simpl

Tom62

#7
October 28, 2009, 07:09:29 AM
Wow, Intercal truly beats Cobol in terms of evilness. Talking about weird computer languages, here at work some of my colleagues still program in APL. Here an example.[attachment=0:o9d9ublv]a2ap1g1.gif[/attachment:o9d9ublv]
I think it is easier to read Egyptian hieroglyphs than APL code.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

AlP

#8
October 28, 2009, 08:55:41 AM
APL is pretty awesomely hard to understand I admit. But INTERCAL has a human element that I like. The following statement is legal in INTERCAL:
PLEASE GIVE UP
as is
PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP (which is a nop).

Have you all seen False?
http://strlen.com/false/index.html
"I rebel -- therefore we exist." - Camus

LoneMateria

#9
October 28, 2009, 04:12:12 PM
I'm glad i don't program in any of those languages.  If those were all that is available I would have made a different career choice.
Quote from: "Richard Lederer"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages
Quote from: "Demosthenes"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Quote from: "Oscar Wilde"Truth, in matters of religion, is simpl

Renegnicat

#10
October 28, 2009, 06:05:22 PM
Holy Hell, I want to learn INTERCAL! That looks so insanely fun I would die of bliss.  :flip:
[size=135]The best thing to do is reflect, understand, apreciate, and consider.[/size]

joeactor

#11
October 28, 2009, 10:23:10 PM
... what about RPG, APL, or Lisp?

I like C++ and C# (as well as Perl and SQL).

Actually got to sit in on a class taught by Bjarne back in the 80's - he was teaching and getting feedback on C++.
Ah, them good ole' Bell Labs days...

JoeActor

p.s. SAIL has the best error message I've heard about: "Wee Beasties.  Wee Beasties.  Oh! Where can ye be?  These Beasties have caused and error for thee!"

Renegnicat

#12
October 30, 2009, 09:54:28 PM
I jumped on the Lua bandwagon a while back. It would be a really good language if they just made some obvious tweaks, like having an integer type, or example.

Oh well.  :drool
[size=135]The best thing to do is reflect, understand, apreciate, and consider.[/size]

LoneMateria

#13
October 31, 2009, 01:10:00 AM
Has anyone used Ruby?  I've heard mixed reviews about Ruby on Rails.
Quote from: "Richard Lederer"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages
Quote from: "Demosthenes"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Quote from: "Oscar Wilde"Truth, in matters of religion, is simpl

AlP

#14
October 31, 2009, 01:45:29 AM
Quote from: "LoneMateria"Has anyone used Ruby?  I've heard mixed reviews about Ruby on Rails.
Yeah I've used it a fair bit. It's a good dynamically typed language. I slightly prefer the syntax and semantics to Python. Python is also good and it seems to have a lot more in the way of libraries available, so I generally use that instead these days. Ruby on Rails is an exception in that regard. I haven't used it but a colleague of mine did for his web site and his opinion of it was favorable. But then he'd previously been using PHP for his site, which is awful.
"I rebel -- therefore we exist." - Camus
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