[AdamSpeight2008]

What are the requirements of a "real" programming language?

Is it the language(s) that you use?
Liberal use of the Curly Braces and Semi-Colons?

Let's find them out, without using derogative or negative digs at other languages. (eg Anything but not VB.)

Your rationale behind your thinking would be appreciated as well.

This post has been edited by AdamSpeight2008: 31 October 2011 - 11:48 AM

[Ryano121]

I don't care for curly braces, semi-colons etc (although I do prefer languages with them). As long as the language has a reasonable user base, then I would classify it as being 'real'.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Ryano121: What defines reasonable user base? How to calculate it?

[Motoma]

Sufficiently cultivated user base.
Capability to solve non-trivial problems.
Syntactically advanced to a point where doing so is not insurmountably difficult.
Robust standard library supporting major internet protocols.
Control over and interaction with underlying operating system.
Use is not restricted to a subset of computing (i.e. only in web-programming, only usable in web-browser, only used on certain specialized hardware).

This post has been edited by Motoma: 31 October 2011 - 12:11 PM

[heyoman1]

As long as a language can actually do something useful, it's real to me.

[tlhIn`toq]

AdamSpeight2008, on 31 October 2011 - 12:33 PM, said:

tlhIn`toq, on 31 October 2011 - 04:14 PM, said:

ATC3, on 31 October 2011 - 08:37 AM, said:

i am learning VBscript to use it in IT work. Any suggestions?

Pick a real programming language.

Microsoft more than oftens use VBScript as their scripting language. You'll find in Microsoft Office Applications (Excel, Word, Powerpoint), you'll even find it in their flagship development software product line Visual Studio. Where it is used
as the language used by Macro System.

So how is VBScript not a "real" programming language? What are the requirements need for to be a "real" programming language? Liberal usage of curly braces and semicolons?

I think you hit the nail on the head. VBScript is a scripting language. Meant and used for automating things within another program. As you said "You'll find it *in* Word..."

But it was never inteded really to be used to create entire programs. If you use it to make programs, then it is a programming language. If you use it to make scripts to automate a task within a program then it is a scripting language.

Can someone with enough time and energy use VBscript to make a freestanding program complete with GUI? Maybe, I'm not sure. Then again with enough time and energy and intent to prove a point someone can make a VW Beetle into a Hummer. But is it really the right thing to do? Is it ever going to be a 'real' Hummer? No.

Most of us would agree that a real language would have to include things that we all expect such as being Object Oriented and such. But it also must be something accepted and supported by the rest of the programming industry. You don't see hardware developers publishing SDK's for their devices in VBscript. For the most part programs are built in (and jobs are offered for programmers in)

• C
  
• C++
  
• C#
  
• Objective C
  
• Python
  
• Visual Basic
  
• Java

HTML, XML, SQL are all coding languages that are required as well for certain niches within programming. But they ride within some other program as their carrier. HTML does you little good without a browser, for example. SQL gets you data in/out of a database. But you still need a program to do something with that data.

Just one's man's opinion/distinction between programming and scripting.

[no2pencil]

A good friend of mine used to constantly go back & forth, C/++ vs Visual Basic, Linux vs Windows.

My argument against Visual Basic has always been the automated drop down items, the pre-filled in "Form1!" names, & the complete lack of requiring any computing knowledge to create an end result.

Can you make a good product with Visual Basic? Sure. But would you want to? I wouldn't. It's like code-by-number & it's for moms, seniors, & all together computer programming degenerates that require constant hand-holding.

The fact that C/C++ makes for a great cross-platform language is just icing on the cake It can go anywhere I do. It's the functional building blocks for pretty much most systems, architectures, software, operating systems, & so on & so on.

Why point & click when I can be getting some actual work done?

[AdamSpeight2008]

C / C++ may be great for cross-platform, but I think you waste a lot of time on the platform specific parts.
Just skip over the error messages caused by template errors.

Point & Click? The GUI designers for .net in Visual Studio, write the required .net code (including wiring up the events) for you that creates the forms.

Spoiler

Look at the attribute at the top of the partial class.

<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _
Partial Class Form1
    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

    'Form overrides dispose to clean up the component list.
    <System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCode()> _
    Protected Overrides Sub Dispose(ByVal disposing As Boolean)
        Try
            If disposing AndAlso components IsNot Nothing Then
                components.Dispose()
            End If
        Finally
            MyBase.Dispose(disposing)
        End Try
    End Sub

    'Required by the Windows Form Designer
    Private components As System.ComponentModel.IContainer

    'NOTE: The following procedure is required by the Windows Form Designer
    'It can be modified using the Windows Form Designer.  
    'Do not modify it using the code editor.
    <System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> _
    Private Sub InitializeComponent()
    Me.Button1 = New System.Windows.Forms.Button()
    Me.SuspendLayout()
    '
    'Button1
    '
    Me.Button1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(157, 76)
    Me.Button1.Name = "Button1"
    Me.Button1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(75, 23)
    Me.Button1.TabIndex = 0
    Me.Button1.Text = "Button1"
    Me.Button1.UseVisualStyleBackColor = True
    '
    'Form1
    '
    Me.AutoScaleDimensions = New System.Drawing.SizeF(6.0!, 13.0!)
    Me.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font
    Me.ClientSize = New System.Drawing.Size(284, 262)
    Me.Controls.Add(Me.Button1)
    Me.Name = "Form1"
    Me.Text = "Form1"
    Me.ResumeLayout(False)

  End Sub
  Friend WithEvents Button1 As System.Windows.Forms.Button

End Class

[no2pencil]

AdamSpeight2008, on 31 October 2011 - 03:45 PM, said:

C / C++ may be great for cross-platform, but I think you waste a lot of time on the platform specific parts.
Just skip over the error messages caused by template errors.

His argument was always about time & setup & blah blah blah as well. This was pre-dot net btw, & we're probably talking vb5? I honestly don't remember. We would have code-offs & would both hash away at whatever the project was. We always had interesting results, because of the different platforms the product was always unique from one another developer.

Like one time we made a program that would take a word phone number like 1800 GET HELP, would translate it to numbers, & actually dial the modem. It started out as an innocent conversation, escalated to a 'your language is crap!' argument, & eventually we both coded it out.

I will honestly say that all arguments aside, our projects usually finished about the same time, with the required outcome, & it was generally 'the language of choice works best for the developer using it'. My arguments about Visual Basic are usually geared towards the maintenance of the code & it's forgiveness against sloppy initialization. Where-as his argument was always about time of setup & interface.

[BobRodes]

While I take your point, no2pencil, about the ability to write some really terrible code in VB6, I would also observe that it isn't a requirement. VB6 is capable of real elegance in the hands of someone who knows their way around it well. I'll use a scenario to make both your points and mine.

Suppose you wanted to, say, support the ability to change the case in a RichTextBox control to Title Case. Although that's supported in the RTF spec, VB6's RichTextBox control only supports v1.0, due to backward compatibility concerns. And 1.0 doesn't support TOM. So your average VB programmer would probably manually mess with each character in the text string. However, there's a better solution:

'Assume a control rtbText on the form, and a reference to riched20.dll
Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long
Private Const WM_USER = &H400&
Private Const EM_GETOLEINTERFACE = (WM_USER + 60)

Sub SetTitleCase()
    Dim myIUnknown As IUnknown '
    Dim tomDoc As ITextDocument
    Dim TextRange As ITTextRange
    SendMessage rtbText.hwnd, EM_GETOLEINTERFACE, 0&, myIUnknown
    Set tomDoc = myIUnknown
    Set TextRange = tomDoc.GetSelection
    TextRange.ChangeCase tomTitleCase
End Sub

This code leverages the IRichEditOle interface to grab the later version of RTF. It isn't directly available to VB6 (i. e. Set tomDoc = New ITextDocument) because VB6 won't directly access COM objects that don't support the iDispatch interface (because they didn't want to have some COM objects that could be late bound and others not, presumably).

So yeah, I would want to. Code like this moves me esthetically. :sniff:

A couple of other arguments against the "VB is a toy" point of view: (1) an expert can create sophisticated solutions to some kinds of real-world business problems in a fraction of the time it takes to create them in C++. (2) most production memory leaks are written in C++.

This post has been edited by BobRodes: 31 October 2011 - 01:36 PM

[lordofduct]

I may be a VB hater...

I also write VB.Net daily for a living, it's the language of choice in our office (and most of my annoyance with it stems from there).

But the claims of it not being a language or 'sucking' because bad code can be written with it... well I've seen bad code written with C/++ as well... do I have to continue that logical deduction?

I dislike VB, but it is most certainly a language, and a very capable language at that. I just prefer terse languages like C/C++/Java/C#/etc because I come from a math background, and nothing will make me not pine for the short terse nature that comes with a math background.

[ishkabible]

just 1 thing actually, it has to have practical use and at least 1 significant advantage over all other languages. if another language fills the same paradigm already then a new language fills it worse than the current language than it is in effect not a "real" language.

examples:

C - fast, simple, there's a compiler for every processor basically. no other language is more widely available

C++ - fast and can be extremely expressive in the right hands. no other language offers the same speed to expressiveness ratio

Lua - easily embeddable, fast and simple. fastest scripting language and arguably easier to embed than any other language.

if i wrote a more complicated version of C for 1 processor it wouldn't be a "real" languge by my definition.

[tlhIn`toq]

lordofduct, on 31 October 2011 - 02:51 PM, said:

I may be a VB hater...

I also write VB.Net daily for a living, it's the language of choice in our office (and most of my annoyance with it stems from there).

But the claims of it not being a language or 'sucking' because bad code can be written with it... well I've seen bad code written with C/++ as well... do I have to continue that logical deduction?

I dislike VB, but it is most certainly a language, and a very capable language at that. I just prefer terse languages like C/C++/Java/C#/etc because I come from a math background, and nothing will make me not pine for the short terse nature that comes with a math background.

I don't think anyone debated VB being a real language. It was the lobotomized subset of it, VBscript, that sparked this conversation and what I referred to as not being a full programming language - because you don't build programs in it.

[lordofduct]

@tlhIn'toq
see: No2Pencil's posts

[no2pencil]

tlhIn`toq, on 31 October 2011 - 05:08 PM, said:

I don't think anyone debated VB being a real language.

I did, but sarcastically. I was just giving my 2¢ to the topic, even if it's an extremely negative & bias viewpoint.