Date   : Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:57:08 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Basic & BBC Basic

Andy Armstrong wrote:
> On 3 Apr 2006, at 23:10, Jules Richardson wrote:
>>> I really don't like C++ - it feels as if it's stolen the worst 
>>> aspects of the languages that have influenced it. Objective C is nice 
>>> but it's hard to do anything useful with it unless you're developing 
>>> for Mac OS. Actually ObjC + Cocoa is lovely.
>>
>> That's a problem - the 'best' languages tend to be the niche ones that 
>> just aren't widely available on all platforms :-(
> 
> Oh, I dunno - I'd say the most powerful languages tend to be free and 
> cross platform. ObjC is available anywhere GCC runs.

Yes, I suppose my point should have been "widely adopted on all platforms" 
rather than "widely available".

I suppose that a language needs to reach some critical mass where it's used by 
enough users before the masses start seriously adopting it (I'm guilty of that 
too; there are some languages that I'm reluctant to touch because I want the 
source to anything that I write to be understandable by as many people as 
possible)

> Cocoa is Apple's evolution of NextStep and is effectively part of Mac OS 
> - so that's not cross platform. OpenStep (the GNU version) /is/ cross 
> platform but not as complete.

Talking of NeXTSTEP, anyone have a NeXT Cube (or colour Slab) that they don't 
want? :-) I've just found the museum a mono Slab, but a colour one would still 
be a nice find or a Cube for sheer coolness factor!

>> These days though I'm getting the impression that all the courses are 
>> about specifics - not because that's what the industry needs, but 
>> because that's what gets more wannabe IT 'professionals' through the 
>> course with good grades. Specifics are much easier to spoon-feed to 
>> people with good results - it's just killing the industry when these 
>> people get out into the real world.
> 
> Yes. I suspect it's not so much killing the industry as transforming it 
> into something we won't like as much. If you want to escape find or 
> initiate a nice open source project - the best ones produce thrillingly 
> beautiful code. Even there you find odd gaps in people's understanding - 
> stuff that was common knowledge 20 years ago but which evidently isn't 
> taught any more. The difference is that when you explain it they either 
> get it straight away or ask intelligent questions until they do.

Heh heh, I remember how blown away people who had been brought up on MS 
Windows were by remote X Windows desktops or being able to just telnet into a 
remote box and drive it from a shell - it always amazed me that people just 
didn't know that this stuff was out there and had been for years. Of course 
these days there are things like VNC around so remote desktops are less of a 
big thing, but in the latter half of the 90's it was a good way of amazing 
people :-)

As for killing the industry, I don't know - I rather believe that it's 
actually harming the industry albeit slowly and that a lot of people either 
aren't noticing or are just taking an "I'm OK" attitude about it and burying 
their heads in the sand providing that the money's still coming in.

>   "Higher-Order Perl is about functional programming techniques in Perl. 
> It's about how to write
>    functions that can modify and manufacture other functions.

Yikes. :-)

I was idly pondering a few months back - could someone write a virus that 
modifies itself before spreading to other machines, making it almost 
impossible for anti-virus software to detect?

> Does anyone here subscribe to Make Magazine? http://makezine.com/
> 
> It's all about recycling and repurposing old stuff - everything from DIY 
> rocketry to embroidery via circuit bending old synths and motorising 
> shopping trollies.

Oooh, I'm heading there now! I always try to fix stuff or use redundant 
equipment for new things, so it sounds well worth a look...

As for DIY rocketry, my last attempt was when I was about 14, involving 
cardboard, pipework, and a can of hairspray. Needless to say, there was a 
launchpad fire and no actual launch ;-)

cheers

Jules