[biggles2008]

Okay, i have a short fuse when it comes to programming, unable to remember the uses and functions of the language so i get annoyed. I get annoyed because its what i want to do, i find it interesting but i cant remember .

So i though id ask you all, Where did you learn to program? School, websites, books???

So i can see which could be best for me

Also which language do you prefer and why?

[biggles2008]

sorry for wrong forum

[Amadeus]

Although these topics have been discussed many times on the site (you may wish to search for similar threads), I'll begin.

I learned to code in order to help me with lab work originally, then my second degree was computer engineering.

I prefer C/C++, because I find it quite versatile.

I predict this thread will turn into another fight between the .NET languages and non .NEt languages.

I went to the Chicken and Rib Fest at lunch. Gold.

[biggles2008]

lol

cant learn C++

i guess im not born for it but its my curiosity drives me on, i guess thats why i like science espescially physics as it explains everything.

[Cerolobo]

I taught myself programming through books. I started off in VB and HTML. After which, I moved up to Assembly and C/C++. I am currently in college, but I've found the bulk of the programming classes (C/C++ oriented) to be fairly easy. I have picked up a few minor bits of information about the language here and there though.

I prefer C, since it is extremely fast, gives you a lot of control over what happens, and it can be portable.

In any case, you guys might like this link
The Computer Language Benchmark Game

This post has been edited by Cerolobo: 18 June 2008 - 12:01 PM

[Mikhail]

began 5 years ago I started out with C I at first only learned the basics such structures and working with numbers, about 3 years ago I took PERL which I am mastering I am at Advanced level of perl this is my main Language, It does things that are impossible to write in C or other languages and things that are too weird to be coded in C.

[Cerolobo]

Mikhail, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 11:59 AM, said:

It does things that are impossible to write in C or other languages and things that are too weird to be coded in C.

That's a rather bold statement. I can't think of anything that PERL can do that C can't. Then again, I really haven't looked int PERL much, since I'm not a huge fan of interpreted languages, or their performance/memory usage.

Care to enlighten me with a example?

[no2pencil]

My 1st experience to programming was Batch files on Dos 3.3. Just simply reference the command out of the instruction book, & off I went.

Years later I would buy a Unix scripting book (that covered both Bash & Korn) before I even had a Unix system. I just read & read & by the time I found Linux, I already had a small understanding of the concept.

Then when I moved to C++, it was only natural that I again, get a reference book. Seemed logical, figure out step by step how the program should work, write it out on paper, & then read on the functionality required to get the job done.

[biggles2008]

Oh batch files I expierienced them at school a few years ago. They blocked websites so i did the echo command.com trick saved as bat and did the tracert in cmd (cmd and notepad were blocked) not the best thing for a first expierience but meh.... I learned HTML first from http://www.html.net easy tutorials.

I have been learning the "Dim" aspect of VB.NET tonight from the microsoft VB.NET ebook

And what sort of things can Perl do?

[AdaHacker]

biggles2008, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 10:10 AM, said:

So i though id ask you all, Where did you learn to program? School, websites, books???

All of the above. My first attempt to learn to program was from a "Teach Yourself Visual C++" book the summer after I finished highschool. I didn't get far, though. It didn't really start to stick until I began taking computer science classes in college. That's where I learned the principles behind programming - algorithms, data structures, discrete math, and all that other good stuff.

Maybe it's just the courses I took, but I never really acquired a whole lot of practical programming knowledge from classes. To me, the benefit was more in learning how to think about programming and providing a base upon which to build. Come to think of it, the only programming languages I ever studies in in college were C++, Prolog, and a few weeks on SQL in a database theory class, and I haven't touched C++ or Prolog since I left school.

Since college, I've learned mostly from websites, because they're free and the information is (hopefully) very up-to-date. However, a good book can be a really invaluable sometimes. The trouble is finding the good ones. Personally, I tend to avoid technology books, because they get dated too fast, and stick to books on methodologies or other more general topics, i.e. books that won't be out-dated when version 4.1 of Product Foo comes out.

Quote

Also which language do you prefer and why?

Well, I always liked Ada95, partly because the strong type system forces you to think about your data and partly because everybody else seems to hate it, which appeals to the contrarian in me. On the down side, I haven't really had occasion to use it because, well, everybody hates it, which makes it not very marketable. So I guess that makes my current favorite C#, because I know it well enough to get things done, but not well enough to be annoyed by all the subtle annoyances that every language has.

[AdaHacker]

Cerolobo, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 12:16 PM, said:

That's a rather bold statement. I can't think of anything that PERL can do that C can't.

How about a DVD decryption program in 7 lines? Granted, you can achieve the same end result of decrypting the file in C (or pretty much any other language for that matter), but I doubt you could do it in 526 bytes of source code. I'm not much of a Perl fan, but it can pack a truly impressive amount of functionality into a tiny amount of code.

[Tom9729]

AdaHacker, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 11:00 PM, said:

Cerolobo, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 12:16 PM, said:

That's a rather bold statement. I can't think of anything that PERL can do that C can't.

How about a DVD decryption program in 7 lines? Granted, you can achieve the same end result of decrypting the file in C (or pretty much any other language for that matter), but I doubt you could do it in 526 bytes of source code. I'm not much of a Perl fan, but it can pack a truly impressive amount of functionality into a tiny amount of code.

Yeah but it doesn't count if you're just calling other programs, which I assume is what you're talking about, though correct me if I'm wrong.

Perl is a cool language. Personally I prefer PHP because it's a little less, well, weird, but hey.

Edit: Wow I'm an idiot right now, I didn't even see that you linked to something. Please ignore everything I said until I get a chance to read that.

Edit Edit: Ok I concede, but WOW is that code unreadable.

s''$/=\2048;while(<>){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*",_)[20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@
b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb25,_;H=73;O=$b[4]<<9
|256|$b[3];Q=Q>>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))<<17,O=O>>8^(E&(F=(S=O>>14&7^O)
^S*8^S<<6))<<9,_=(map{U=_%16orE^=R^=110&(S=(unqT,"\xb\ntd\xbz\x14d")[_/16%8]);E
^=(72,@z=(64,72,G^=12*(U-2?0:S&17)),H^=_%64?12:0,@z)[_%8]}(16..271))[_]^((D>>=8
)+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO-U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval

This post has been edited by Tom9729: 18 June 2008 - 08:37 PM

[Cerolobo]

AdaHacker, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 08:00 PM, said:

Cerolobo, on 18 Jun, 2008 - 12:16 PM, said:

That's a rather bold statement. I can't think of anything that PERL can do that C can't.

How about a DVD decryption program in 7 lines? Granted, you can achieve the same end result of decrypting the file in C (or pretty much any other language for that matter), but I doubt you could do it in 526 bytes of source code. I'm not much of a Perl fan, but it can pack a truly impressive amount of functionality into a tiny amount of code.

Umm... On the same page you gave me...
http://www.cs.cmu.ed...fdtt-source.txt

434 bytes for the C version, while the PERL one is 472...

So, what was your point again?

[mensahero]

I started programming with vb6 7 months ago in school and the while on vacation I started learning about JAVA by reading books and google.

[AdaHacker]

Cerolobo, on 19 Jun, 2008 - 05:06 AM, said:

434 bytes for the C version, while the PERL one is 472...

I stand corrected. And, what's more impressive, the C version may be even less readable than the Perl one! Yet more proof that C is the king of bad programming languages!