About programing, a general question

[Parshwa Murdia]

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Les <hlhowell at pacbell.net> wrote:

I have taught 4 different languages professionally, BASIC, PASCAL,
> FORTRAN(actually a language with syntax similar to FORTRAN), and C.  I
> prefer to teach people C.
>
>        I am not a real C guru, but I can tell you that it has the power to
> either great abstraction, or to be very close to the machine.  It
> depends on how the programmer views the problem.  I know that there are
> people who will argue with me on that point, but lets not get
> sidetracked here.  The goal of a programmer is to produce useful working
> code that does the jobs needed to be done.
>
>        There are anomalies in all languages.  Some of them are inherent to
> the
> language, some are due to the compilation process, in the conversion
> from a somewhat human recognizable syntax to machine code in several
> steps.
>
>        So to talk about the things that have bothered one person in one
> language is not really material at this point.  And in some cases those
> issues can compiler dependent (as the A+b==0 case where the potential
> errors come from whether a and b are integer, float, double or long
> double, and what is the defined value of true (b==0 can be 1 or -1,
> integer or long.  If 1, it is binary 0000 0000 0000 0001 and -1 is 1111
> 1111 1111 1111 for example)  And the C definition makes char and byte
> synonymous at this time, although new character sets are represented
> differently.
>
>        So the discussions of evaluation are compiler dependent and in most
> cases somewhat machine dependent as well.
>
>        My view is of a programmer who does mostly embedded type stuff, so
> it
> is different from a person who specializes in say graphics, or
> databases, or even text manipulation, or perhaps a medical or biological
> programmer.  Furthermore, some programmers specialize in mathematical
> areas, such as filtering, or high precision, or signal processing.
> Others work in theoretical physics.
>
>        Choosing Python to manage long chain mathematics would probably not
> be
> too efficient or productive.  Fortran would not be good for text
> manipulation.  Lisp would not make a good report generator (in my
> opinion anyway), APL would not be good for database administration.
>
>        I do all kinds of programming in C.  I cannot do a full database
> from
> scratch in C, and would probably use SQL in some form for that, but for
> most "quick hack" tools I still use C from the command line.  Most of my
> programs are repeat use, but require very little interaction and little
> in the way of feedback (think YUM as an example).
>
>        When working on microcontrollers I use Assembly for most programs.
> When working in my professional field as a Test Programmer, I rely on C,
> BASIC, assembly and machine language (bit control of parts is required
> to test them).
>
>        This is all to say that the ultimate language you use will be mostly
> determined by your career path, but you will most likely use more than
> one.
>
>        To learn, I recommend Intel Assembler code and C. Mostly because
> they
> are somewhat good examples of both power and complexity, and can produce
> quick simple programs that do useful things and represent real
> accomplishment.
>
>        But remember my programming is focused on functional programming.
> That is programs that produce hardware operations in real time.
>
>        I would also recommend reading a lot of code.  There are a lot of
> oxymorons in code production.  Self documenting code is one.  If it were
> really self documenting we probably wouldn't call it code.  Logical
> sequence is another. While many things take place in a logical sequence,
> when programming for efficiency, what is fast and what is logical will
> sometimes be at odds.  Reading code and reading about code will give you
> an edge in these types of issues.
>


You seem to have a great experience in programing, yes, you are correct,
there is not one language to program in if one is a programmer. Indeed,
reading about and then deciding is the best. I do agree with your
suggestions of C language, the unforgettable one, as one sees the ocean of
programing languages.


Programming is fun, challenging, nerve wracking, frustrating, and amazing
> all at the
> same time.
>
> Regards,
> Les H



Very correct and good statement, programing is fun, challenging and amazing,
that might be the reason it is compelling me to go through it even though my
job is not that of a programmer!


-- 

Regards,
Parshwa Murdia
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20101218/afbdb896/attachment.html