I used to (and to a degree do) program shareware for the Windows. Our company just did a complete 180 at Christmas. We are totally pro Mac OSX. So what changed our minds. OSX comes with decent development tools and it's got a BSD base. We are all total converts. It's really scary. I know all those mac freaks always said "Macs are easy to use" but they failed to mention that they are unbelievably easy to use compared to Windows. The learning curve is nice and gentle and smooth. Windows is hell in comparison. Sure it will take a while to learn a whole new API but who cares. The machine doesn't crash. How can you not be totally passionate about Macs?
We are very happy with our Barricade. Turn it on and it does the job. The 8 port is a nice metal job as opposed to the 4 port in plastic. Applying the patches is fairly easy. Better logging would be good but still it's a great little box. And the built-in print server is very handy. Oh and it's a switch not a hub. All at a reasonable price.
I still recommend starting first term in Pascal. By the end of my first term I was comfortable programming loops, ifs, multi-dimensional arrays, and had seen pointers and recursion.
For kicks a while back I took a compressed 6 week first term java course....Week 3 we started writing code. We did loops and if statments in the same class. Can we say if loops for people who have never programmed? The first three weeks all we did was call library routines. No wonder the new programmers are confused. Believe it or not those integrated enviroments like Visual Studio and Delphi have are pretty overwhelming if you have never used a computer or programmed before. ( Do you give your kid a nail gun or a hammer and some nails when they are just learning? )
Pascal gave me a solid background to start from. Since then I have easily picked up Modula-2 and C. Which is where Delphi would come in at second term. It's OOP and allows RAD with the bonus of you already know the base language. Perfect for all those little 2nd term labs. And look, you still have time to touch on recursion, pointers, trees and other data structures and algorithms.
Once you know the fundementals of programming you can pick up other languages more quickly.
Delphi isn't portable
Okay this is mostly true. Kylix is now available for Linux. But how portable is the MFC? or Java? really? Not all Java VM are the same.
Delphi and Pascal have those evil pointers
What and Java doesn't? Check your error messages! At least they are fairly safe Pascal. So now if you learn Java as your primary, first language you are going to have a hell time with C/C++ pointer. And there is a lot of that code around. How do you think OOP works without pointers?
Yes, Delphi does
Web Services with XML Technologies
Web Application Design Platform
Web-Service Enabled Database Middleware
High Performance Native Windows Applications
Rapid Application Development (RAD) IDE
RADical Visual Development
Database development for any application
COM / ActiveX / COM+ Features
OpenGL
Just my take on things after watching my husband teach pascal -> modula-2 -> C -> C++ -> Java. His favorite argument against Java is How do you explain public static void main(String[] args) at the beginning of first term?
And I think they are great if you know what you are doing. If you don't know the command you can be hooped but really does make life easier in the long run to learn it. Plus when stuff goes wrong with video it is much easier to know what to type at the command line than to guess where you are clicking on the screen and just how far to move a mouse you can't see down to the option you want. CLI forever!
I just got my Mac working. It's an old Mac Laptop (got it cheap). I love it. It's really funny because I'm fairly decent on an NT system (administrator/programmer) but every time I use my Mac or FreeBSD box (where my experience is next to nil, but I can do more, faster and easier) I find it harder to come back to NT.
I was writing some code on the Mac and realized that output to a second screen was just another handy option in the menus. I don't seem to recall seeing this in my M$ compilers (now I could be wrong and it could be very well hidden). I was blown away. Now I've just got to get a second monitor for that system. Why does M$ have to take so long to get everything ? (I was going to say right but I realized that they never have).
Many people dump on Apple machines (I'm sure lots of you will flame this article) but they really are cool! Apple computers made me want to program and have fun with them. I remember the first PC I tried programming and I gave it up. Apple ]['s and Mac Classics are definitely way more fun than a PC any day.
I admit it. I'm a BSD lover. There are two main reasons. 1) Out of the box BSD is more secure. If some one has proof of a Linux that is more secure out of the box than OpenBSD please let me know. 2) I'm a shareware author. GPL does not seem to believe that programmers should be paid for their work or any monies made from it. This is fine if it's not how you put bread on the table. Yes, the BSD license sets the source code free. But it is by the programmers' choice whether or not to make money with it.
Yes, Microsoft could use the code to write a better OS. (I'm groaning at that too!) But would that really be so bad. Yes, they would mangle it but they would at least be starting from a nice, stable base.
I would think if anything this will give rise to more space missions as more strong, light weight materials become available. I know that for your latest, coolest ground based telescope toys weight is a serious issue. And probably for the space bound ones as well. If they can make extremely light, strong material and safe yet highly combustable fuel, I think space travel is not too far away. You could go live on beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter's moon Europa in a nice safe human habitat. But seriously, they could start designing almost anything they wanted. Invisible aluminum - anyone?
I think most software companies that ship their software on physical media would have those problems. My own company gets bug fixes out the door usually within a week. But then again we do shareware and it's only available on the Internet. I've noticed most Internet only software tends to get fixed faster just because it doesn't have that huge inventory.
If you go and buy Windows 95 off a store shelf (if you could find a copy) it's the first release. Why? Inventory. Microsoft probably doesn't need more Win95 CD coasters so sell it to the unsuspecting consumer who will just be "so pleased" to have win95 over win3.1 they won't care it's totally buggy.
I believe good code has an average of 1 bug for every 1000 lines. Windows 2000 has how many lines? 30-40 Million (I'm guessing here) So we're looking at 30-40 thousands bugs. And that's if it's good code and not rushed out the door, sort of tested stuff. And yes, for all you Windows people out there, if you reboot your machine every day of course you don't have problems. But seriously, what sort of reliablity is that?
Slashdot Mirror
the ramblings of a new convert
We are very happy with our Barricade. Turn it on and it does the job. The 8 port is a nice metal job as opposed to the 4 port in plastic. Applying the patches is fairly easy. Better logging would be good but still it's a great little box. And the built-in print server is very handy. Oh and it's a switch not a hub. All at a reasonable price.
I still recommend starting first term in Pascal. By the end of my first term I was comfortable programming loops, ifs, multi-dimensional arrays, and had seen pointers and recursion.
For kicks a while back I took a compressed 6 week first term java course....Week 3 we started writing code. We did loops and if statments in the same class. Can we say if loops for people who have never programmed? The first three weeks all we did was call library routines. No wonder the new programmers are confused. Believe it or not those integrated enviroments like Visual Studio and Delphi have are pretty overwhelming if you have never used a computer or programmed before. ( Do you give your kid a nail gun or a hammer and some nails when they are just learning? )
Pascal gave me a solid background to start from. Since then I have easily picked up Modula-2 and C. Which is where Delphi would come in at second term. It's OOP and allows RAD with the bonus of you already know the base language. Perfect for all those little 2nd term labs. And look, you still have time to touch on recursion, pointers, trees and other data structures and algorithms.
Once you know the fundementals of programming you can pick up other languages more quickly.
Delphi isn't portable
Okay this is mostly true. Kylix is now available for Linux. But how portable is the MFC? or Java? really? Not all Java VM are the same.
Delphi and Pascal have those evil pointers
What and Java doesn't? Check your error messages! At least they are fairly safe Pascal. So now if you learn Java as your primary, first language you are going to have a hell time with C/C++ pointer. And there is a lot of that code around. How do you think OOP works without pointers?
Yes, Delphi does
Web Services with XML Technologies
Web Application Design Platform
Web-Service Enabled Database Middleware
High Performance Native Windows Applications
Rapid Application Development (RAD) IDE
RADical Visual Development
Database development for any application
COM / ActiveX / COM+ Features
OpenGL
Just my take on things after watching my husband teach pascal -> modula-2 -> C -> C++ -> Java.
His favorite argument against Java is
How do you explain public static void main(String[] args) at the beginning of first term?
Command Line Interface
And I think they are great if you know what you are doing. If you don't know the command you can be hooped but really does make life easier in the long run to learn it. Plus when stuff goes wrong with video it is much easier to know what to type at the command line than to guess where you are clicking on the screen and just how far to move a mouse you can't see down to the option you want. CLI forever!
I just got my Mac working. It's an old Mac Laptop (got it cheap). I love it. It's really funny because I'm fairly decent on an NT system (administrator/programmer) but every time I use my Mac or FreeBSD box (where my experience is next to nil, but I can do more, faster and easier) I find it harder to come back to NT.
I was writing some code on the Mac and realized that output to a second screen was just another handy option in the menus. I don't seem to recall seeing this in my M$ compilers (now I could be wrong and it could be very well hidden). I was blown away. Now I've just got to get a second monitor for that system. Why does M$ have to take so long to get everything ? (I was going to say right but I realized that they never have).
Many people dump on Apple machines (I'm sure lots of you will flame this article) but they really are cool! Apple computers made me want to program and have fun with them. I remember the first PC I tried programming and I gave it up. Apple ]['s and Mac Classics are definitely way more fun than a PC any day.
I admit it. I'm a BSD lover. There are two main reasons. 1) Out of the box BSD is more secure. If some one has proof of a Linux that is more secure out of the box than OpenBSD please let me know. 2) I'm a shareware author. GPL does not seem to believe that programmers should be paid for their work or any monies made from it. This is fine if it's not how you put bread on the table. Yes, the BSD license sets the source code free. But it is by the programmers' choice whether or not to make money with it.
Yes, Microsoft could use the code to write a better OS. (I'm groaning at that too!) But would that really be so bad. Yes, they would mangle it but they would at least be starting from a nice, stable base.
I would think if anything this will give rise to more space missions as more strong, light weight materials become available. I know that for your latest, coolest ground based telescope toys weight is a serious issue. And probably for the space bound ones as well. If they can make extremely light, strong material and safe yet highly combustable fuel, I think space travel is not too far away. You could go live on beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter's moon Europa in a nice safe human habitat. But seriously, they could start designing almost anything they wanted. Invisible aluminum - anyone?
I think most software companies that ship their software on physical media would have those problems. My own company gets bug fixes out the door usually within a week. But then again we do shareware and it's only available on the Internet. I've noticed most Internet only software tends to get fixed faster just because it doesn't have that huge inventory.
If you go and buy Windows 95 off a store shelf (if you could find a copy) it's the first release. Why? Inventory. Microsoft probably doesn't need more Win95 CD coasters so sell it to the unsuspecting consumer who will just be "so pleased" to have win95 over win3.1 they won't care it's totally buggy.
I believe good code has an average of 1 bug for every 1000 lines. Windows 2000 has how many lines? 30-40 Million (I'm guessing here) So we're looking at 30-40 thousands bugs. And that's if it's good code and not rushed out the door, sort of tested stuff.
And yes, for all you Windows people out there, if you reboot your machine every day of course you don't have problems. But seriously, what sort of reliablity is that?