EVE General Discussion

C++ Is a very good intro language because if used simply, it teaches the basic structure of software programming, but this is mostly console based. It is mostly used for instructional purposes. I have a friend who is a Senior embedded C++ programmer for Honeywell and yes if you know C++ very well, you will make tons and tons of money no doubt, but those positions are fairly limited now days with the bulk being .Net or Java programming.

I think C++ is a very good tool to teach you OOP because it teaches you the history of software design and gets your feet wet. Newer languages are much more OOP friendly.

It did ruin it I agree, it took a lot of the "engineering" out of programming and handles a lot of that for you, and I would agree with that statement. Like I said, when I was in Junior High, High School, and College I was taught C++, J++, and VB 6.0 and in my latter years in College we were taught .NET and I would also admit that at first I refused to use .NET because it was outside my comfort zone but I realized you have to in order to keep up with technology. And Sadly today, most of what you see is .NET because things are going the way of web design which is mostly ASP type work and although PHP and Java has its place in this realm, I think ASP is much more commercialized (marketing-wise).

But I will admit, if I had a choice of java or C++ (with pointers and OOP) I'd pick java, wouldn't you :)

I can code in C64 basic. I wrote a program that I could feed a mining base and had randomised yields and random trader priced.

I was very proud of that program until the computers tape machine chewed the tape up :(

People will always beat up QA for what they dont understand

It's fun trying to keep a grip on cooked pasghetti, huh

As I remember it, Pascal was a "student language". I took courses at night for it at an overseas college run on a military base, and the course used Pascal in the first 2 "semesters" (the schedule is not like real college) and if you passed the first 2, they went onto C. I passed but it was time to go home before taking the class in C - continued that at a local community college.

Ah the memories!!! I had a used Zenith Supersport with a 8088 processor and a copy of Borland Pascal and I said "OK if this thing runs Pascal, I can take the course" and it worked. I still have one of those 2 ton (relatively) monochrome laptops with the 8088 processors - heck it had 2 700K drives so I had to boot from one and run Borland from the other. The keyboard on that laptop is still the best in the world and the only thing that comes close is Das Keyboard (for real people with real hands) but they are expensive.

When I got home I was living in the fast lane: I got a used 386.

try? http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/

I poked them an email about layout, and they replied there is a version in the works that will put it in a semi-fake Unix layout (CTRL where CAPS is today). Yes the HHK is available but they don't do that in full size (I need the arrow set and the numberpad).

As for myself, I'm a Nothgate Omnikey Ultra owner (and two of the similar replacements by Avant). Apparently those used the same mechanical keys as the TRS-80s (which explains why I've liked the feel for so long). However, their complexity (and virtual indestructibility) made it hard to sell many, and now the Avant folks have folded too. Not a complete loss though, as I discovered that this key type is not modifiable to make quieter (hence my I poked the WASD folks - you *can* quiet down the Cherry keys).

Regarding Pascal - yes, alongside BASIC they were the training languages a couple decades back. They're actually very good for learning data structures without having to pull your hair out every 5th compile (because Pascal compilers won't let you do some of the messy tricks with pointers that gets you in trouble with C). Nowadays I'm told C# & Java are being used as the introduction language.

As a Solaris/Linux Admin though, I still happier with insane shell scripting (with csh when possible).