Brell Rants

Barious · Post by **Barious** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:25 am

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!
Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!

-Barious

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:40 pm

SicTimMitchell wrote:Everyone should have to learn 6502 assembly.

That's how many game developers, including me, started. Sometimes I miss the simple days.

SicTimMitchell · Post by **SicTimMitchell** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:34 pm

That's how many game developers, including me, started. Sometimes I miss the simple days.

After Commodore went down, I completely lost interest in programming. Never had a Vic 20, but the C64 and (especially) Amiga were just fun to tinker with.

I still have a friend who refuses to program for Windows, although he does very well for himself writing Mac stuff.

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 1:59 am

Sorry, I had an Apple IIe, not a toy you could buy at K-Mart. You could never fry an egg on my floppy drive.

SicTimMitchell · Post by **SicTimMitchell** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:19 am

I think you mean to say: "I HAD AN APPLE IIE NOT A TOY YOU COULD BUY AT KMART."

Ah, the days when you could tell the Apple users right away because they had no lower case.

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:46 pm

My lowercase worked just fine. Maybe you're thinking Apple II+? Perhaps they typed in all uppercase so it would be easier to read on your TV.

SicTimMitchell · Post by **SicTimMitchell** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:17 pm

Maybe this will bring back memories of the suckitude you were forced to deal with.

(Actually, this is extremely cool and I'm being nice, but you still suck.)

http://www.virtualapple.com/

EQLizard · Post by **EQLizard** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:24 pm

OMFG im playng oregon trail again!!!1one!1
you sir, have made my week

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 5:12 pm

That's pretty cool.

You know, perhaps I haven't been totally fair. When I was at New World Computing we had a C64 that was incredibly useful. So useful that dozens of people used it every day.

It was attached to our bathroom key.

Minute · Post by **Minute** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 9:30 pm

Raistle I literally have thousands of E/Chm Books on various programming languages if you want. Everything starting from "What's notepad?" and up. I'd be happy to send ya anything you need.

Btw... from personal experience I'd recommend to someone brand new to programming you start with an object based language and learn functional programming next or in the process. Everyone I've ever worked with in the area had a much harder time going from the functional programming mindset to class/object based programming than in the opposite order.

I'm a big fan of Java myself.

SicTimMitchell · Post by **SicTimMitchell** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:10 pm

It was attached to our bathroom key.

I take it this was your urinal.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=71

Ickhor · Post by **Ickhor** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:10 am

Java won't really help you with a c++ class, it may help you learn OOP easier though.

It's easier in that you don't have to learn C++'s idiosyncracies, but you do have to learn Java's idiosyncracies, which may be less of a pain in the ass when you're just starting though.

If you want to "learn a language just to learn to program," and then move to a "real" language later, I suggest that you start with something like Python or Ruby or possibly Scheme/LISP. These languages sadly aren't used very often in real life, but will teach you how to program a lot easier than the other ones.

Java is honestly very strong for enterprise development of robust applications, it is also somewhat a beginner-friendly language, but its friendly second and bullet-proof first.

I always recommend Python to new programmers. I have a programming write up on my website here: http://kevinponds.com/programming.html , which basically sums up where I stand at programming.

Just for a point of reference, I know about ~25 programming languages (this is counting embedded scripting languages too like lua) and almost always choose the same one when I have the ability to make that choice: Ruby.

I also have collected a large array of web links related to programming available here: http://del.icio.us/ponds . Just click on the tag on the right hand side for whatever topic you want.

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:54 am

Java and C++ are similar in syntax, but IMO that's where the similarity stops. Java hides memory management and pointers from you, and those are important things you will need to know to be a good C++ programmer. If you're just learning it for a class then it probably won't make that much difference. I'll admit I haven't spent much time fooling with Java, but it seemed to me that their standard library was just different enough from C++ to be really annoying too.

Thanks for the links Ick. Good reading material.

Oh, and Die Tim Mitchell you bastage!

Post by **Ddrak** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:47 pm

My parents got me a 6502 assembler for my 11th birthday, along with the C64 programmer's reference guide! Those were the fun days, trying to find some spare zero page memory to save a few bytes of code.

Dd

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:16 pm

On the IIgs you could move the zero page. Best hack I ever saw using that was moving it to video memory and saving a cycle on every pixel drawn.

AuSerpent Sonoblade · Post by **AuSerpent Sonoblade** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:27 pm

In all honesty... just start with c++ instead of starting with something else then moving to c++. You will save yourself a lot of effort and frustrations. There are many free online references/tutorials on the subject.

Start with a simple hello world program.
Learn how to compile and execute it.
Create a few simple classes.
Write a simple program that uses those classes.
Overload an operator.
Use the overloaded operator.

Congratulations... you have the basics down...
The rest you usually learn on a need to know basis.
If you forget the syntax then you are the same as the rest of us.
That's what books/google is for....