Are you a programmer?
- Thread starter PiCroft
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Do not bother with VB all the good code examples and an overwhelming majority of the questions I find are in C#. Learn that instead, or if you want an easier language learn Ruby or Python.JezebelinHell said:
I have a BSc in computer science, and am employed as a (mainly) Java developer, though I do have to do some PHP now and again in my current job. Ironically these two languages are ones I chose to learn (Java, because Delphi was being a pain in the ass, PHP because I wanted to build onto this chatbot that was for an IRC-like network), so am mainly using self-taught knowledge XD.
Work is web-based, so I know the associateds (HTML, CSS, SQL, how XML works)
Done some Ruby here too lol.
On my course I also did Delphi, C and C++, though my knowledge is now rusty in those
.
Magically managed to avoid VB so far :O.
Work is web-based, so I know the associateds (HTML, CSS, SQL, how XML works)
Done some Ruby here too lol.
On my course I also did Delphi, C and C++, though my knowledge is now rusty in those
. Magically managed to avoid VB so far :O.
I work as a programmer for an educational software company. I have had to learn and use C++, C#, Action Scripts, processing, ASP, PHP, and SQL, as well as the FlashMX, Allegro, DirectX and Unity3D libraries. I fancy myself an independent game developer at home and primarily work with C# and Unity3D these days.
Self taught here.
Started with BASIC on DOS. DOS or Win 3.X, I forget which, came with QBASIC, (and continued to do so until Win98 I think) which had absolutely wonderful documentation included in program. Well, I guess you could say I started with HTML, but that's not really a programming language, and also learned CSS once it started to be used and supported extensively.
From there was Visual Basic. The first thing I made in VB was a semi-clone of the Legend of the Red Dragon BBS Door game which used a MySQL database for the back end stuff. Then PHP and JavaScript, then C++, Java, and C#.
I can lay out the logic for an entire program in my head pretty easily, but can never remember the names of half the native functions and the like when actually writing it.
Started with BASIC on DOS. DOS or Win 3.X, I forget which, came with QBASIC, (and continued to do so until Win98 I think) which had absolutely wonderful documentation included in program. Well, I guess you could say I started with HTML, but that's not really a programming language, and also learned CSS once it started to be used and supported extensively.
From there was Visual Basic. The first thing I made in VB was a semi-clone of the Legend of the Red Dragon BBS Door game which used a MySQL database for the back end stuff. Then PHP and JavaScript, then C++, Java, and C#.
I can lay out the logic for an entire program in my head pretty easily, but can never remember the names of half the native functions and the like when actually writing it.
Will hopefully get Engineer's degree next year.
in the order of learning:
(turbo) basic
pascal
delphi
C#
C++
and a little of x86 assembly, VBA. Now learning JAVA.
in the order of learning:
(turbo) basic
pascal
delphi
C#
C++
and a little of x86 assembly, VBA. Now learning JAVA.
I don't think I count, all i've used so far is VB and all i've made with that was a binary convertor, battleships and noughts and crosses.
I just started a course at college this year that covers just about everything to do with video games but we haven't got to programming yet.
I just started a course at college this year that covers just about everything to do with video games but we haven't got to programming yet.
Last year of a masters degree in Computer Software Development (Computer Science with anything graphic based cut out) here. Know C# and SQL pretty thoroughly. Dabbled in C++, PHP, Javascript, VB and Java. Need to learn Objective C over the next few weeks for a part time job I just started. Would like to get my head around graphics (OpenGL mainly) and some low level stuff like Assembler/C at some point, even though I have no intention of a career in that side of programming.
The thing about programming languages, I've noticed, is that once you understand the logic behind programming in general it's just a case of learning the design principles the creator was aiming for and syntax of a language. You can pick it up and start using it pretty damn well within a few days.
The thing about programming languages, I've noticed, is that once you understand the logic behind programming in general it's just a case of learning the design principles the creator was aiming for and syntax of a language. You can pick it up and start using it pretty damn well within a few days.
Technical University Darmstadt, Bsc. Informatics, mainly java, some C/C++ and I currently work with PHP on a content managment system. I plan to specialize in Bioinformatics and find something with it. On the more realistic side I can see a way forward with the PHP thing but it's a bit not challenging enough on the complexity scale (writing simple cycles and tons of ifs is not exactly my idea of realizing all the algorithms that we learned) though writing thousands of lines of code for as an add-on to an existing system is complex enough on its own . Also thinking about MBA so I can get a consultant job or something like that. I don't see myself working for a game industry, but any other will do. I'll let you know if I start working for a car company so you don't buy their cars anymore
. Also thinking about MBA so I can get a consultant job or something like that. I don't see myself working for a game industry, but any other will do. I'll let you know if I start working for a car company so you don't buy their cars anymore java due to computing science, also a little sql, due to the maditory database course and the sql 'course' (it wasnt taught hardly, and the teacher didnt teach it so... quote marks needed) at school. (note, im not claiming to know these languages, i just know the basics) hey what do you expect from a second year now.
id be hesitant to call myself a programmer with my skill, im more likely to call myself an idiot who can somewhat code.
note: not posting the name of said uni, due to me knowing that other people use this site from there, and id rather keep some sence of anonymity.
id be hesitant to call myself a programmer with my skill, im more likely to call myself an idiot who can somewhat code.
note: not posting the name of said uni, due to me knowing that other people use this site from there, and id rather keep some sence of anonymity.
I'm not quite sure about that statement. Which partly owes to the fact that I've never used ORM, but anyway..shadow skill said:
What are ORMs used for? It looks to me as if they are only necessary when you want to make your programming language's native objects persistent. Which in turn means that they wouldn't be necessary if programming languages had support for persistence in the first place.
So if you ask me, it is indeed a problem of lacking features in programming languages - Which may of course be owing to an ontological problem, as well.
First point of interest here.. why make objects in programming languages persistent anyway? Why not just use a persistent DB instead?
Since using SQL within a different language is sort of like mixing two different languages, there is of course the comfort/consistency problem, but I don't think that's so important. I don't have a problem with using inline asm in C files, neither do I have a problem with using SQL queries in python files.
The more pressing problem is the question of what I want to work with. When I'm using a programming language, I have quite a lot of freedom in creating my objects. They can have a dynamic amount of variables, link to any other object and even encapsulate not only their data, but also the way that data is handled(functions).
You have a wide selection of different containers such as lists and maps that can be used to optimize the organization of your data. Hell, you can even create your own containers if you want to.
In contrast to this, a DB like SQL doesn't offer any of these. You can't store links to other entries directly, you can't have a dynamic number of fields, you are not provided a way to comfortably link objects to the functions they are handled with, and storing any form of container in a DB will be quite a hassle(so far I know only of creating a new table, or serializing the array and storing it as plaintext).
All in all, I'd say personally I wouldn't need anything like ORM, but rather a database that:
- can store any hierarchical or recursive object structure natively
- supports arrays and hashtables natively
- has some weak typing support
As I said, I find the fact that most programming languages do not support this natively to be annoying.
It is both - the many ontological problems with computing, including the data/instruction shism, are just another episode of the subject/object dualism. These kinds of dualisms all have in common, that they tear two aspects apart, that can only function efficiently together.CIB said:
Here, we have "dead" and persistent databases that are good (though, not very flexible) at filtering and addressing information (programming languages don't have this - there ain't no such thing as an sql query for cascaded hashes - and that is a really low bar... they can't even do that). Programming languages know crap about patternmatching - by now, the modern ones are expected to do it with strings - but patternmatching datastructures? You kidding? "Thats what DBs are for"
On the other hand, we have "active" non-persistent programming languages, that are good and flexible at making decisions, and defining own datastructures (too bad, that they have no builtin standard for addressing those nice creations... gotta implement every addressing and filtering job yourself. The lookup syntax of progamming languages reaches exactly one pointer far.... the next neighbour, and thats it). Here, we have all the flexibility we want, if only we're willing to do everything ourselves, and accept that everything will be gone, once the application terminates.
Let me describe a third approach, to show how ridiculous the current dualism is. Imagine an actor that manages it's own internal dataset (with dataset, i do not just mean a bunch of vars. I mean practically useful structures - it may even be a filesystem: myactor:\foo\bar\baz). That's about the most nondualistic programming concept i can think of. Nothing could be more "natural" and straight forwards: you have datasets, and people who manage them - with the people communicating with each other.
Next up, lets say the language in which these actors are written, has builtin support for searching and patternmatching datastructs.
FOREACH object IN foo/*/baz DO
iterators via patternmatching are fun!
END
This is just an example of what i mean. Doesn't need to be filesystem style (though, i for some reason like this). What i'm after is just that these actors can search their own data similiar to how you can do queries in SQL.
Finally, let's say such an actor including its internal dataset can be dumped/loaded to/from disk.
How many commercial middleware vendors would go broke, because no one needs them anymore?
Was forced to learn Java. Which was an utter waste of time.
Otherwise: PROLOG, Python, C++ and Assembler.
That being said, I suppose I´m one of those cs students who do NOT enjoy programming AT ALL. Would rather drive a pencil through my eyesocket than work as an actual programmer.
Otherwise: PROLOG, Python, C++ and Assembler.
That being said, I suppose I´m one of those cs students who do NOT enjoy programming AT ALL. Would rather drive a pencil through my eyesocket than work as an actual programmer.
An ORM is nothing more than a DSL that helps an OO language manipulate data in an RDBMS'. Our problem is ontological because objects in an OO language have the added vocabulary, or qualities of state where as RDBMS' generally lack this vocabulary. In the end we needed to create metalanguages to translate the language of OO general purpose language into one suitable for use with something that deals almost exclusively with sets and trees because spending our time doing it ourselves is mind numbing.CIB said:
You can create tables that represent trees with MS SQL server and probably other RDBMS'. No annoying recursion without lambdas, or confusing joins either. With SQL server at least.
http://www.sqlteam.com/article/more-trees-hierarchies-in-sql
Setting up a join table like the one in the above link would make it trivial to assemble data into a hierarchical format for traversal. RDBMS' have stolen many ideas from OODBMS as it is. MS SQL server for example does allow you to setup table inheritance and even a working model of how an object in an OO language might dynamically inherit properties of different classes. For example if you have a DB with a base table of person an employee table, and a student table it becomes easy to see how a query of a given student or employee might need to include information not only from the base table person but from student or employee respectively.
See a brief example here:http://www.sqlteam.com/article/implementing-table-inheritance-in-sql-server
Even if we had more widely available OODBMS' I can all but guarantee that we would have written ORMs anyway because these tools typically are closely tied to specific languages. The ontological problem rears its' ugly head once again! Our eyes cry tears of blood as we try to write DSLs to transform C/C++ to Ruby and vice versa to deal with objects written in those languages which of course treat data types differently. Of course we could just embed a standard SQL language at which point we would write ORMs that generate SQL language and be right where we are right now barring a few minor details.
Edit: Fixed some link fail.
I am currently just taking a Web Dev Certificate program at the local community college it requires the choice of VB or Java focus. So I am a bit stuck with one or the other, anything else will be additional classes. I have Associates in Electromechanical Engineering with Robotics and CIS so I am just making a bit of a direction change.shadow skill said:
Hmm, I would go with Java then. If you are going to take a course it will be better to take classes in a language that will be more useful to you than VB is. I think it is a shame that VB has such a bad reputation, there really is nothing wrong with the language but people do not seem to use it much if at all. It really just means that taking a course on it is not cost effective in the long run. I say that as someone who writes vb code for a living mind you.JezebelinHell said:
You already know C++ so picking up C# on your own time shouldn't be too difficult if you decide to do so. Java won't be too difficult either.