There are many projects out there of smaller size that may be less intimidating.
In fact, the smaller the better. Nobody can be expected to dive right into Mozilla or OpenOffice and start fixing bugs, but then nobody has to. Google is your friend. Start with the API/platform/technology that you are interested in, and seach for projects that use it. You can even find projects specific to a particular development tool (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fastmm, http://www.indyproject.org/). You name it, its out there, and it doesn't have to be mainstream to be useful to you.
If you're going to teach concepts, do so. Don't use a language as a crutch. Teach in pseudo code.
What happens when students try to implement pseudo coded algorithms in a language that is LESS capable than the pseudo code presented by the instructor? If the algorithm involves data structures with pointers, such as a linked list or a binary tree, VB users are going to have a rough time with that assignment. I know there are some hack-ish workarounds to do pointer operations in VB, but we are talking about choosing a beginners language here.
Yes, the real key to learning computer science is to grasp the concepts. So beginners need to be wary of languages that attempt to hide certain concepts because they are "too complex" for most people. Beginners had damned well better get their heads around those exact concepts if they ever hope to be anything more than beginners.
People will say that Visual Basic is "unstructured," and they're clueless.
VB is unstructured. For that matter, C only is loosely structured. In C, the only code structure is functions, and they can call each other from anywhere, and in any order. You CAN write structured code in VB, or in C, or in assembly for that matter, but you are responsible for the structure, not the language.
Window creation is needlessly masochistic.
Agreed. The Win32 API was/is a series of extensions to the Win16 API, which was built to run as a layer on top of 16 bit DOS, which was originally designed for 8088 IBM PCs. Talk about historical baggage. However, VB is not the only way to encapsulate the low-level pain of Win32. Any decent class library will do, such as MFC (and I'm not talking about the App-Wizard generated mountains of MFC, but an actual program written by an actual person).
... and used the VB interface just to call C++ DLL functions. It's doable. It works pretty well.
Is this statement intended as an argument for VB or against it? You're falling back on C++ because VB can't do the heavy lifting. If you like being able to paint the GUI, give Delphi a shot. Object Pascal has all of the object oriented features you would expect (except maybe multiple inheritance) and a really clean class library. However, I would not recommend Delphi as a beginner's language.
Sure, and I'll be done before a C++ coder even has a window up and running.
I can run a one-off perl script from the command-line before you can set the name of your OK button. But I CERTAINLY don't recommend Perl as a beginner's language. I don't even recommend Perl as an advanced language, but since I have managed to pick up a bit of it over the years, I put it to good use when I need it.
I will endorse Python as a beginner's language. Now I only need to find a decent cross-platform beginner's IDE with python support.
Re:In re: "from the free-as-a-bird dept."
on
Songbird Flies Today
·
· Score: 3, Funny
The really sad part is that it probably wasn't even cousin Alice who sent it, it was someone else who had both you and cousin Alice in their address book.
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
There is an IHOP in Gastonia, NC that is located on Cox Road. Urban legend has is that they used to answer the phone "IHOP on Cox". Say it out loud for the full effect.
All you really need to know about your car is how to operate it and how to take care of it
This would be a great idea if computers were anywhere near as reliable as cars. I am a developer, and I drive to work, so I use both cars and computers every day. If I compare the number of times a car of mine has broken down and and left me stranded on the side of the road with the number of times I've gotten a BSOD, the blue screen wins. YMMV (literally).
The same goes for hardware problems. Most hardware problems are simple and fixable (in cars and in computers), but some are just not, like a rod bearing or a mobo that's just plain fried. Comparing the number of unrecoverable failures, computer hardware wins again.
Until the reliability is there, and computers become true appliances that you can just plug in and turn on, there will remain a gap separating people into two groups, those that know enough to make computers work and those that rely on the first group.
The Toulouse blog basically proves, as if it weren't obvious, that Gibson is full of crap.
The Toulouse blog states that Gibson is full of crap, without providing any proof. He says the flaw can be triggered with a correct record length, but does not state anything about what conditions might be the trigger. Not that I would expect him to provide those details, but that's what it would take to prove Gibson wrong. Toulouse's response amounts to "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" or "These are not the droids you're looking for".
I suppose the proof is in a briefcase, along with all of the UNIX code that IBM copied into Linux.
If Dell ever did ship machines with Linux preinstalled, they sure as hell wouldn't *tell* you what the root password was. You would have to call support, who would have you reboot, press F8 and select "Recover" from the boot menu, which would run a format-and-reinstall script from the recovery partition, fully restoring the machine to the pristine condition it was in when it arrived (ie, without any of your data files), just like they do now for crashed Windows boxen (really happened to to my father-in-law, he was not happy).
The early Simpson's artwork actually bore a strong resemblance to Life in Hell, so I think it may not have been necessity so much as Groening's style. Take a good look at Marge next to Bongo. See what I mean?
"Google solved the aforementioned issues at 01/12/2005, by using character encoding enforcement."
12/01/2005 for those in the US.
This is why since high school I have used alpha abbrevs for the month when I write dates, like Dec 21, 2005, even when filing in forms that have pre-printed slashes.
Cue one of my favorite Roadrunner cartoons, where the roadrunner runs halfway around the circular hole beneath a natural rock bridge, and stops at the very top, standing upside down. The coyote follows him up, and promptly falls. In a crumpled heap, the coyote holds up a sign reading "That defies the law of gravity", to which the roadrunner responds (also with a sign) "I never studied law".
Mainly it is not obsolete because you don't want to make a major mistake, save it and be unable to undo that mistake.
When talking with my users, I have even referred to closing a document without saving it as a "high level undo". If you completely trash something, just don't save it and start over from the good saved copy. Autosave might deprive you of a good saved copy.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll believe it when I see the product on the shelf. Or e-shelf.
Or on my doorstep.
The name of the ring is the brass rat.
Wikipedia is your friend.
There are many projects out there of smaller size that may be less intimidating.
In fact, the smaller the better. Nobody can be expected to dive right into Mozilla or OpenOffice and start fixing bugs, but then nobody has to. Google is your friend. Start with the API/platform/technology that you are interested in, and seach for projects that use it. You can even find projects specific to a particular development tool (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fastmm, http://www.indyproject.org/). You name it, its out there, and it doesn't have to be mainstream to be useful to you.
I rocks in the East and I rolls in the West
and order a Double Quarater Pounder
... with Cheese!
If you're going to teach concepts, do so. Don't use a language as a crutch. Teach in pseudo code.
What happens when students try to implement pseudo coded algorithms in a language that is LESS capable than the pseudo code presented by the instructor? If the algorithm involves data structures with pointers, such as a linked list or a binary tree, VB users are going to have a rough time with that assignment. I know there are some hack-ish workarounds to do pointer operations in VB, but we are talking about choosing a beginners language here.
Yes, the real key to learning computer science is to grasp the concepts. So beginners need to be wary of languages that attempt to hide certain concepts because they are "too complex" for most people. Beginners had damned well better get their heads around those exact concepts if they ever hope to be anything more than beginners.
Oh, where to begin, where to begin.
... and used the VB interface just to call C++ DLL functions. It's doable. It works pretty well.
People will say that Visual Basic is "unstructured," and they're clueless.
VB is unstructured. For that matter, C only is loosely structured. In C, the only code structure is functions, and they can call each other from anywhere, and in any order. You CAN write structured code in VB, or in C, or in assembly for that matter, but you are responsible for the structure, not the language.
Window creation is needlessly masochistic.
Agreed. The Win32 API was/is a series of extensions to the Win16 API, which was built to run as a layer on top of 16 bit DOS, which was originally designed for 8088 IBM PCs. Talk about historical baggage. However, VB is not the only way to encapsulate the low-level pain of Win32. Any decent class library will do, such as MFC (and I'm not talking about the App-Wizard generated mountains of MFC, but an actual program written by an actual person).
Is this statement intended as an argument for VB or against it? You're falling back on C++ because VB can't do the heavy lifting. If you like being able to paint the GUI, give Delphi a shot. Object Pascal has all of the object oriented features you would expect (except maybe multiple inheritance) and a really clean class library. However, I would not recommend Delphi as a beginner's language.
Sure, and I'll be done before a C++ coder even has a window up and running.
I can run a one-off perl script from the command-line before you can set the name of your OK button. But I CERTAINLY don't recommend Perl as a beginner's language. I don't even recommend Perl as an advanced language, but since I have managed to pick up a bit of it over the years, I put it to good use when I need it.
I will endorse Python as a beginner's language. Now I only need to find a decent cross-platform beginner's IDE with python support.
In re: 'from the free-as-a-bird dept."
What song is it you want to hear?
The really sad part is that it probably wasn't even cousin Alice who sent it, it was someone else who had both you and cousin Alice in their address book.
It could be worse. Alice could be your dad.
In Soviet Russia, distro googles YOU!
...
No, wait...
In Soviet Russia, google distros YOU!
No, that's not quite it either
In Soviet Russia, Goobuntu googles YOUR DISTRO!
Okay, maybe there's not one here after all.
http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
Can't we all just get along?
Girls can pee just fine standing up. Aiming is the problem. But I suppose with a little practice ...
"Scrubs"? "Head of Class"? Oooo that one goes back a ways, don't it?
There is no way in hell I want the infamous slashdot effect directed at something in my pocket!
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
There is an IHOP in Gastonia, NC that is located on Cox Road. Urban legend has is that they used to answer the phone "IHOP on Cox". Say it out loud for the full effect.
All you really need to know about your car is how to operate it and how to take care of it
This would be a great idea if computers were anywhere near as reliable as cars. I am a developer, and I drive to work, so I use both cars and computers every day. If I compare the number of times a car of mine has broken down and and left me stranded on the side of the road with the number of times I've gotten a BSOD, the blue screen wins. YMMV (literally).
The same goes for hardware problems. Most hardware problems are simple and fixable (in cars and in computers), but some are just not, like a rod bearing or a mobo that's just plain fried. Comparing the number of unrecoverable failures, computer hardware wins again.
Until the reliability is there, and computers become true appliances that you can just plug in and turn on, there will remain a gap separating people into two groups, those that know enough to make computers work and those that rely on the first group.
The Toulouse blog basically proves, as if it weren't obvious, that Gibson is full of crap.
The Toulouse blog states that Gibson is full of crap, without providing any proof. He says the flaw can be triggered with a correct record length, but does not state anything about what conditions might be the trigger. Not that I would expect him to provide those details, but that's what it would take to prove Gibson wrong. Toulouse's response amounts to "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" or "These are not the droids you're looking for".
I suppose the proof is in a briefcase, along with all of the UNIX code that IBM copied into Linux.
If Dell ever did ship machines with Linux preinstalled, they sure as hell wouldn't *tell* you what the root password was. You would have to call support, who would have you reboot, press F8 and select "Recover" from the boot menu, which would run a format-and-reinstall script from the recovery partition, fully restoring the machine to the pristine condition it was in when it arrived (ie, without any of your data files), just like they do now for crashed Windows boxen (really happened to to my father-in-law, he was not happy).
Top Gear was pretty cool, but I only caught a couple of eps on Discovery, and haven't seen it since.
and it was "low-quality" by necessity.
The early Simpson's artwork actually bore a strong resemblance to Life in Hell, so I think it may not have been necessity so much as Groening's style. Take a good look at Marge next to Bongo. See what I mean?
Slamming doors helps too. And occasionally breaking shit.
you fucking redcoat (seriously Yank??)
He could be an Aussie, they call us Yanks, too.
"Google solved the aforementioned issues at 01/12/2005, by using
character encoding enforcement."
12/01/2005 for those in the US.
This is why since high school I have used alpha abbrevs for the month when I write dates, like Dec 21, 2005, even when filing in forms that have pre-printed slashes.
despite breaking the laws of physics.
Cue one of my favorite Roadrunner cartoons, where the roadrunner runs halfway around the circular hole beneath a natural rock bridge, and stops at the very top, standing upside down. The coyote follows him up, and promptly falls. In a crumpled heap, the coyote holds up a sign reading "That defies the law of gravity", to which the roadrunner responds (also with a sign) "I never studied law".
The classics never get old, do they?
Mainly it is not obsolete because you don't want to make a major mistake, save it and be unable to undo that mistake.
When talking with my users, I have even referred to closing a document without saving it as a "high level undo". If you completely trash something, just don't save it and start over from the good saved copy. Autosave might deprive you of a good saved copy.