A comment on programming languages

[chipotle]

On Slashdot, someone wrote, "I would feel pretty stupid actually reading a QBASIC book in 2003. Modern programming languages are easier to learn than QBASIC." To which the reply was:

By what reckoning? They turn this:

PRINT A +  B

into this:

am = new math.ArithmeticManager();
opA = new math.Operand((float) a);
opB = new math.Operand((float) b);
am.addOperand(opA);
am.addOperand(opB);
am.operator = new math.operators.Addition();
am.executeMathOperation();
system.io.output.print(am.mathOperationResult());

You know, he has a point.

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I am a professional programming languages geek at IBM, so I can blather about this topic for months without repeating myself or saying anything.

But ... there's a continuum here. Some languages are intended for writing small programs quickly, helping people learn how to program, and suchlike. That gives you the "PRINT A + B" style.

Other languages are intended for gluing massive structures together -- and we're not talking huge programs in one language, we're talking seventeen huge programs in a total of thirty-eight different languages, no two of which were ever intended to cooperate. This gives you the other example ... not because it's the simplest way to say "PRINT A+B" in isolation, but because it's the simplest way to connect two systems, one of which prefers to express everything in balanced trinary, and the other of which prefers to "PRINT A+B" by counting out A pebbles, then B pebbles, then hurling them all into a geosynchronous orbit.

Choose your agony.

As far as that goes...

[bwcoyoten.livejournal.com]

I spent about five years programming database front ends, and for that purpose, I liked the ease-of-use and customizability of VB.

Now, however, as I begin working towards a game design career, I find myself using VC++ for all that the version I have is horribly misnamed: it's not quite "visual" at all, as most of the work is still done in pure code.