From: "Sir Charles W. Shults III"
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.misc
References: <3df6adb4$0$200$45beb828@newscene.com> <3df6b269$0$79555$8eec23a@newsreader.tycho.net> <6P1M9.67823$hK4.5634577@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Which basic compiler to buy?
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Message-ID: <4A3M9.75796$Db4.2008095@twister.tampabay.rr.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 18:59:12 GMT
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Organization: RoadRunner - Central Florida
As a long time machine code and assembly programmer from way back, Basic was
truly simple when it appeared. But C also caught my attention quickly and has
remained my favorite language ever since. I have to say that all the C
mutations are not so good, such as C# and probably C Hyper or some other things
we have yet to imagine- function overloading and the like really seems more of a
handicap in many circumstances, leaving the new guy staring at what you have
written and wondering how it works at all.
It should have stayed simple, in my opinion. Turbo C was truly a great
language and I enjoyed it from one end to the other. But when inheritance,
virtual operators, etc. showed their faces, the language lost its innate
simplicity and legibility. I do write in C++ but I stick mostly with the older,
well known Turbo C style programming.
Well, this is more of a ramble, but the fact is, any language can be legible
and understandable if it is written properly. Sure, you can write in an obscure
fashion too, and many programmers seem to delete in creating crunched, obtuse,
"snazzy" routines that nobody but a computer scientist could ever unravel. This
is not the point of making programs. C actually gains great clarity from the
ability to write functions, not the opposite. Anyone can understand what
"print" does in Basic, but only a handful really know what happens in the mix.
The same stands for any function in C, if it is named and laid out properly.
My point is that any decent programmer worth what you pay him will create
legible, well documented programs. If they can't stick to some sort of
standards, they are not worth the time. You will just be setting yourself up
for a disaster.
Cheers!
Chip Shults
My robotics, space and CGI web page - http://home.cfl.rr.com/aichip