For any software engineers out there...

[rsn 135]

Some of you may have seen this before, but this was passed around my company again this year and I thought I'd post it here too. If you're not a SE, I apologize for boring you to tears.

http://www.fullduplex.org/humor/2006/10/ho...mming-language/

[Niels Bohr 72]

Some of you may have seen this before, but this was passed around my company again this year and I thought I'd post it here too. If you're not a SE, I apologize for boring you to tears.

http://www.fullduplex.org/humor/2006/10/ho...mming-language/

That's a good way to remember how to implement each language.

[Niels Bohr 72]

C is more direct. I have more control with C in terms of programming micro-controllers. C++ is easier to use because of objects, and more control on data members than C. Nothing beats assembly in terms of speed though.

Edited December 18, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[rsn 135]

C is more direct. I have more control with C in terms of programming micro-controllers.

Actually, assembly is more direct. There is a guy out there who is semi-well-known, Steve Gibson (SpinRite, ShieldsUp, etc), who writes most, if not all of his software in assembly. He even wrote something that will allow you to (more easily) write 32-bit Windows apps in assembly.

EDIT: I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "direct" but assembly is certainly "lower-level".

Edited December 18, 2009 by rsn

[Niels Bohr 72]

C is more direct. I have more control with C in terms of programming micro-controllers.

Actually, assembly is more direct. There is a guy out there who is semi-well-known, Steve Gibson (SpinRite, ShieldsUp, etc), who writes most, if not all of his software in assembly. He even wrote something that will allow you to (more easily) write 32-bit Windows apps in assembly.

You have to be alert to the memory adresses. I hate dealing with finding things in assembly. An, you gota make sure the program counter is in the correct place. Plus, when you're implementing data structures such as a stack in assembly be vary of the nested stacks. Debugging it is a pain.

In assembly, if I were to write small programs it's very simple. Programs such as infrared controllers such as capturing the IR pulses from the remote using RC5 protocol. Very basic. I cannot write a functional 32 bit app using assembly. Although, I can write small assembly code inside a C program to increase the speed.

If people know how to write assembly quicker than they do C or C++, we would not have large storage requirements like today. I think the increase in memory capacity was due to lazy programming.

In assembly you can control what type of memory addressing modes you want to use. Well, maybe in C or C++ you can as well. But, you can't garuntee that the code in C or C++ is an atomic instruction.

Edited December 18, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[rsn 135]

C is more direct. I have more control with C in terms of programming micro-controllers.

Actually, assembly is more direct. There is a guy out there who is semi-well-known, Steve Gibson (SpinRite, ShieldsUp, etc), who writes most, if not all of his software in assembly. He even wrote something that will allow you to (more easily) write 32-bit Windows apps in assembly.

Very basic. I cannot write a functional 32 bit app using assembly. Although, I can write small assembly code inside a C program to increase the speed.

Apparently Steve Gibson can. While he sounds like an interesting guy, he's also a little crazy. One big problem with writing all of your products in assembly is the incredible difficulty that is probably associated with maintaining the code. How would you like to take over some of his code? No thanks.

Edited December 18, 2009 by rsn

[scandal 951]

Perl

You shoot yourself in the foot, but nobody can understand how you did it. Six months later, neither can you. (via Andy)

I like that!! Plausible deniability to beat the rap for the armed assault charge.

FORTH

Foot in yourself shoot.

Hmm.. They're missing sections for C#, Objective C, sed/awk, and my favorite language of all - brainfuck!

[rsn 135]

Perl

You shoot yourself in the foot, but nobody can understand how you did it. Six months later, neither can you. (via Andy)

I like that!! Plausible deniability to beat the rap for the armed assault charge.

FORTH

Foot in yourself shoot.

Hmm.. They're missing sections for C#, Objective C, sed/awk, and my favorite language of all - brainfuck!

C# is Microsoft's replacement for and improvment upon msjava as far as I can tell. Syntax is VERY similar to standard Java. They also forgot ML, Groovy, and noop, among others.

[scandal 951]

C# is Microsoft's replacement for and improvment upon msjava as far as I can tell. Syntax is VERY similar to standard Java.

That's sort of true, but not really.

Both languages share obvious similarities in that they are C/C++ derivatives designed to be entirely OO languages which run on a VM (bytecode interpreter).

However, C# is not a Java derivative - it is more properly thought of as a C++ derivative that has 'modern' features such as built in garbage collection and memory management, including safe access. C# explicitly includes features Java does not - for example the usage of real pointer arithmetic with the 'unsafe' keyword, and the 'goto' keyword. These are obviously not recommended or required for most programs, but are useful to have. Java tried to be a "too perfect" language, imho, by eliminating these things.

Another example is operator overloading. C# inherits that from C++. James Gosling decided that its a nasty habit, and banished it from Java. That one - I can understand. Point to Java.

Oh, C# has formal closures ; Java does not. I've never programmed with closures. But I'm told by those who do that they're the bee's knees.

The list of differences goes on.

Anyway, no 'real' programmer would work with any VM based language. Sandboxes and garbage collection are for kids who can't play with pointy-edged tools. Real programmers stick to C/C++

Oh - and I'm not a 'real' programmer. I stick to Perl. It gives me plausible deniability.

[rsn 135]

C# is Microsoft's replacement for and improvment upon msjava as far as I can tell. Syntax is VERY similar to standard Java.

Anyway, no 'real' programmer would work with any VM based language. Sandboxes and garbage collection are for kids who can't play with pointy-edged tools. Real programmers stick to C/C++

Real programmers solve problems in whatever language is most appropriate.