Okay, let me introduce myself. I am currently developing a new type of computer gaming called
Flux-Based Computer Gaming™. The purpose of Flux-Based Computer Gaming™ is to avoid misunderstandings and false understandings between people who think differently by allowing people to see how other people think. It does this in a highly symbolic and abstract way, so that it is not immediately obvious to the player of the game that that is its purpose. I started this in 1997, long before I ever heard of "Asperger's Syndrome."
I am currently looking for artists to work on the game. At some time in the future, I will be needing testers as well.
...This isn't for BrainAcademy 2005 by any chance, is it?
Never heard of it, but I looked it up. No, this is something I started in 1997. I figured I could finish it in a few years, but, eight years later, I'm still thinking I can finish it in a few years. It's massively complicated; not something I could just throw together for a contest. To have maximum flexibility in creating the interface, I am writing the entire engine myself, which has proved to be much more complicated than I anticipated.
#pikhq 0.1
#Licensed under the GNU General Public License (version 2.0 or later)
#Copyright (c) 2006 Pikhq
#By no means is this finished.
package require gareth 1.0
package require aspies 1.0
package require manliness 2.0
package require coffee 3.0
package provide pikhq 0.1
namespace eval pikhq {
set version 1.0
proc hail {} {
gareth::hail $gareth::gareth
puts "HAIL GARETH!"
if {$aspie::aspie != $gareth::hail} {
puts $manliness::manly_message
set nonman $aspie::aspie
manliness::kill $nonman
} else {
aspie::puts "HAIL GARETH!"
}
}
proc code {} {
manliness::tcl $aspie::code
gareth::c $aspie::code
coffee::get
}
}
For each X as person in World
If GetType(X.NeurologicNetwork) Is iAspie then
Console.WriteLine("kiek greets {1}", X.Name)
Else
Console.WriteLine(System.String.Empty)
End If
Next
Proud to be VB.NET coder :grin: Crank out code faster, Make more money. :wink:
Too many "languages for the masses."
Let's see how a better language can shorten kiek's program:
people.each do |p|
puts "Darmani greets #{p.name}" if p.is_a? Aspie
puts "" if(!p.is_a?(Aspie))
end
Of course, you can also make the logic identical. Still shorter.
people.each do |p|
if p.is_a? Aspie
puts "Darmani greets #{p.name}"
else
puts "" if(!p.is_a?(Aspie))
end
end
Keypresses in VB program, including Shift but excluding whitespace: 183
In Ruby? 89.
Line count doesn't do it here, although it usually does. However, keypress count reveals that the Ruby program is half the size.
Ruby is far superior to any language ever simple enough to be taught in a high school, such as C, C++, Java, Pascal, COBOL, Basic, Fortran, even (err....especially) the strongly typed, lexical-token-heavy VB. It is even superior to many of the languages for smart people, such as Python. It is simply awesome.
Of course, I make no comment about how it compares to other good languages, such as OCaml, Haskell, and Lisp.
Note: Don't judge Ruby from this post. I only showed a little bit of iterators, the shorthand if, and the general syntax including how parentheses are optional and how it is weakly typed. I didn't even mention all its other delicious superiorities, such as the superior ways of creating different types of variables, how much unnecesary filth can be cut out of a class including all those stupid, identical accessor and mutater methods that you shouldn't have to bother coding manually, the bliss of regular expressions, ranges, the ease of operator overloading; everything that makes a 20 line Ruby class equal to a 70 line Java class.
Well actually you do not have to include shifts, the compiler does that for you ;-)
Yeah I am not a programer in the sense of a programmer that writes as short as possible code in a language nobody can read :grin:
I used to do that in C (only had school training in C and VB6, never cared to learn another language)
And common you have to agree, if you want to make pilles of money with windows programming you just have to use VB. Also Bussiness men only understand the words money and deadline, they don't care about efficiency, they solve efficiency problems by throwing more money at it. I learned that te hard way, there is no time to write efficient.
I code webservices for use in the belgian adult entertainment industry. The only thing they do is phoning me every 2 hours to ask "Is it done yet?"
Well actually you do not have to include shifts, the compiler does that for you ;-)
Hehe, I haven't been bothered to look for word count in any IDE I have. I just used MSWord.
[quote="kiek"]And common you have to agree, if you want to make pilles of money with windows programming you just have to use VB. Also Bussiness men only understand the words money and deadline, they don't care about efficiency, they solve efficiency problems by throwing more money at it. I learned that te hard way, there is no time to write efficient.[quote]
Who said anything about Windows programming and business men? Who said that all programmers have to work for anyone else?
I am very influenced by the writings of hacker (not cracker) Paul Graham( http://www.paulgraham.com), who advocates founding startups so that one can use whatever language one wants to create a product and hopefully makes lots of dough on it. Go to his website if you want to learn the details.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
char iq[255];
char tmp[255];
int main(void)
{
puts(">");
gets(tmp);
if (tmp << 114)
{
puts("\nHa ha! You're IQ is lower than mine!");
}
else puts("\nDarn, how'd you get so smart?!");
}
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
char iq[255];
char tmp[255];
int main(void)
{
puts(">");
gets(tmp);
if (tmp << 114)
{
puts("\nHa ha! You're IQ is lower than mine!");
}
else puts("\nDarn, how'd you get so smart?!");
}
Ah...I think you mean to say this...
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
char tmp[255];
int main(void)
{
puts("Enter your IQ>");
gets(tmp);
if (atoi(tmp) < 138)
{
puts("\nHa ha! You're IQ is lower than mine!");
}
else
{
puts("\nDarn, how'd you get so smart?!");
}
return 0;
}
These days, I have been doing a lot of consulting. I work from home, which is great because I can control my surrounding to a much greater degree than I was able to back when I was an employee. (At one place where I worked, my boss was an electrical engineer whose background was in hardware development; he thought that writing code was "easy" and that all I did all day was simply "typing".)
One of my side projects is hacking with Asterisk, an open-source IP telephone system. I'm working on expanding its video capabilities, to allow it to offer services like voicemail and such visually, instead of just listening with an earpiece. It's pretty hard to do, but then all interesting problems are hard.
i want to be a systems programmer..and yes i'm an aspie.i get to go to a computer camp this summerand i'm going take computer languages.
i want to be a systems programmer..and yes i'm an aspie.i get to go to a computer camp this summerand i'm going take computer languages.
If that is what you want to do, then I would strongly advise you to study C and the a kernel source code such as Linux's or one of the BSD versions. Also, get involved in an open-source project: it will give you plenty of exposure to the software development process.
i have a book called:'advanced programing in the UNIX environment'. will thathelp me any?
It should be helpful. The book will most likely be discussing software written in C, so you ought to get up to speed on that. The beginning of the book should have some fairly simple program listings to help you out. Your local Barnes & Noble or Borders should have a good selection of introductory C books.
I also recommend getting a version of Linux running on your system (or on a spare PC if you can't do it on your main system). Windows is fine and all, but for really serious hacking, you need to be using UNIX or a UNIX clone like Linux. MacOS X should be fine too. One of the reasons I'm saying this is because there are lots of free, high-quality tools available for these platforms; the ones for Windows are expensive and not very well made.
C, Python, Perl, Lisp, and other languages are built-in to most UNIXs. MacOS X comes with Python already installed, and Apple lets you download free tools for building MacOS apps.
That being said, I would like to address some of the other points you brought up in other posts.
The computer camp is a good opportunity to meet other student programmers face-to-face and collaborate on ideas. You can pretty much take or leave the classes; you'll probably be better off learning these things from a book. I would recommend "Learning Python" by Mark Lutz and David Ascher, put out by O'Reilly Books, to start with. I don't work for O'Reilly, but I am a fan of their books, and their line of programming books is first-rate.
Skip the Basic and Java classes; nobody writes serious code in Basic anymore, and I don't know anyone who does not work for Sun Microsystems who is doing anything interesting with Java. The C++ class might be interesting, but you will need some background in C in order to understand what is going on. The Open-GL class sounds like fun too.
Your post also mentioned the AP Computer Science Exam. This is another one of those take-it-or-leave-it things. Personally, I consider it a waste of time, because most rigorous CS programs don't teach a particular language, they teach algorithms and methodologies. I went to MIT, where the introductory CS class was called "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"; they use the book by the same name, written by Harold Abelson and Gerald Sussman. The class uses Scheme, a Lisp variant, in order to present ideas in computer science, such as recursion or Lambda calculus. The thing is, it's not a Lisp class or a Scheme class; what they're trying to do is present ideas that can be used with any language. Students are generally expected to learn languages such as C or Java on their own time. The attitudes at other universities are similar.
If you are looking for an interesting project to work on, you could start by browsing the Free Software Foundation's website, at http://www.fsf.org. They have lots of stuff to choose from.
In summary, I believe that the best way to learn to program is to write code, make mistakes, and learn from them.
i'm taking HTML and Web Design next year and hoping to learn how to code in HTML. how hard/long does it take to learn it?
i'm taking HTML and Web Design next year and hoping to learn how to code in HTML. how hard/long does it take to learn it?
It's not that hard. O'Reilly puts out some really good books on the subject, which your local bookseller should carry. In particular, take a look at "Dynamic HTML", which also has stuff concerning CSS and Javascript.
Normally, I would tell people to look at other people's source code in order to learn a new programming language. This advice does not work well with HTML, since a lot of developers now use webpage generating tools like Frontpage. The code that these tools spew out of often not optimal and is difficult to follow. Also, a lot of pages are dynamically generated, using stuff like PHP, so it's hard to see how it all fits together. The best anyone can do is study the examples in the books and try to piece together what the code in your favorite websites are trying to do.