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C Craft: C is the desert island language.

www-cs-students.stanford.edu

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Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#51

Post by Stormbringer »

jedsmith wrote: post #13
Groxx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There you're largely screwed, but Java is well-known for being extremely verbose, and of course there will be languages that don't have basic features others have had for decades. The closest you can get in Java is to wrap it in a private, internal class. Which also lets you rename some verbose or frequently-combined operations, say: foo.someoneCouldntComeUpWithAShorterName() -> wrapped.succinct() -- or -- foo.store(…

I see your Java, and raise you Objective-C: NSString *thing = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Result: %@", [foo someoneCouldntComeUpWithAShorterNameWithZipcode:08205 name:@"larry" parcels:5]]; NSDictionary *request = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:@"iphoneapp/0.1", @"User-Agent", @"news.ycombinator.com", @"Host", nil]; This isn't to kick off pet language wars, by the way, just to point out that my OCD tic to…

"just to point out that my OCD tic to wrap to 80 characters has absolutely zero place in Xcode. Or Java."

Dude. Are you still using CGA? Unless for your IDE you're running emacs on your wristwatch or phone there's no place for that shit in the real world, and you have no excuse.

Ditch that green cathode ray tube, here, have 50c and go buy yourself a real monitor. :D

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#52

Post by blub »

Stormbringer wrote: post #49
blub wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"that C is superior to full-blown C++[...]" I disagree that C is superior to C++ for most projects. First of all, C++ offers higher-level semantics which leads to an increase in productivity. According to [1], the ratio of C++ to C LOC is 1 to 1-2.5, but I'd be interested to read other studies or articles. My experience and [1] also contradicts your statement that rewriting code with STL/Boost will lead to increased…

LOC means nothing, and if you want to generate subtle programmer errors, then templates is definitely the way to go.

LOC means a lot when it comes to:

* reading and trying to understand source code

* maintaining source code

* typing and programming-related injuries

The dynamic-typed camp argues that even declaring a variable is a pain. Conciseness is one of the favourite features of JS/Ruby/Python developers and prolixity is universaly loathed in Java.

Please expand on your assertion that subtle programming errors are caused by templates. I'm interested especially in errors as a consequence of using templates from the STL or to build generic code. i.e: not metaprogramming

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#54

Post by glenjamin »

Stormbringer wrote: post #51
jedsmith wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your Java, and raise you Objective-C: NSString *thing = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Result: %@", [foo someoneCouldntComeUpWithAShorterNameWithZipcode:08205 name:@"larry" parcels:5]]; NSDictionary *request = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:@"iphoneapp/0.1", @"User-Agent", @"news.ycombinator.com", @"Host", nil]; This isn't to kick off pet language wars, by the way, just to point out that my OCD tic to…

"just to point out that my OCD tic to wrap to 80 characters has absolutely zero place in Xcode. Or Java." Dude. Are you still using CGA? Unless for your IDE you're running emacs on your wristwatch or phone there's no place for that shit in the real world, and you have no excuse. Ditch that green cathode ray tube, here, have 50c and go buy yourself a real monitor. :D

Lines longer than 80 chars are harder to scan, and sticking to this rule allows tiling of windows. Maximising code windows on a widescreen is a huge waste. Even with long lines the average line length will be far shorter.

This is Guido's reasoning for keeping PEP8's rule to 80 chars.

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#55

Post by [deleted] »

jedsmith wrote: post #26
Groxx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disclaimer: I have not tried these. Totally pulling these from a quick googled-refresher of macros. #define withZip someoneCouldntComeUpWithAShorterNameWithZipcode #define dictWith dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys or #define dictWith NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys so you can [dictWith: key, value, key, value] :) I forget, does XCode intelligently handle macros? Or does using a macro destroy its helpful feature…

Doing that is probably fine if you are working alone and nobody will ever read your code. Reading Objective-C is already enough of a challenge without having to context switch to a header just to mentally resolve symbols. Instead of using a macro for the selector: NSDictionary *frob = [NSDictionary macroHere:v1, k1, v0, k0, nil]; It would probably be far more efficient to macro the entire call using C99's variadics:…

[deleted]

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#56

Post by xyzzyz »

cabalamat wrote: post #36
chittis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Java doesn't have typedefs how would you reduce the verbosity of : ConcurrentHashMap foo = new ConcurrentHashMap ();

I'd write the code in Python (or indeed any sensible modern language). foo = {}

What if you want to create an instance of other type of dictionary? {} works only for built-in dicts.

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#57

Post by chalst »

billforsternz wrote: post #40
Ruudjah wrote: post #33

> Not only is C easy for humans to understand, Is he being funny or serious?

Serious. C is a simple, elegant language. If your natural inclination is towards low level tools without elaborate abstractions built in, then yes it is easy to understand. Easier than the equivalent assembly language for example.

Assembly language is generally easy, excepting only that it typically doesn't insulate issues of memory addressing, &c. The big advantage of C over assembler is portability.

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#58

Post by [deleted] »

leon_ wrote: post #39
Groxx wrote: post #3

> In my Eiffel days, I was encouraged to write "integer", not "int", "character", not "char", and so on. I believe Java encourages this practice too. Supposedly clarity is maximized. But how can this be if we do the opposite when we speak? Do you say “taxi cab”, or “taximeter cabriolet”? Redundant utterances are tiresome and worse still, obscure the idea being expressed. I see this argument a lot, and they strike me…

I don't know for Java (luckily haven't been using it much) but for C I dislike typedefs. I need to know what data I'm working with. A typedef hides that information from me behind a shiny but uninformative name.

[deleted]

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#59

Post by sliverstorm »

gcv wrote: post #2

I love the link to OTCC (the Obfuscated Tiny C Compiler, http://bellard.org/otcc/ ). It frankly blows my mind.

I don't think you'd need infinite monkeys to come up with that. It closely resembles what my dog produces when laying on my keyboard.

Re: C Craft: C is the desert island language.

#60

Post by berntb »

Stormbringer wrote: post #51
jedsmith wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your Java, and raise you Objective-C: NSString *thing = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Result: %@", [foo someoneCouldntComeUpWithAShorterNameWithZipcode:08205 name:@"larry" parcels:5]]; NSDictionary *request = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:@"iphoneapp/0.1", @"User-Agent", @"news.ycombinator.com", @"Host", nil]; This isn't to kick off pet language wars, by the way, just to point out that my OCD tic to…

"just to point out that my OCD tic to wrap to 80 characters has absolutely zero place in Xcode. Or Java." Dude. Are you still using CGA? Unless for your IDE you're running emacs on your wristwatch or phone there's no place for that shit in the real world, and you have no excuse. Ditch that green cathode ray tube, here, have 50c and go buy yourself a real monitor. :D

It is fascinating to see people having 24+" monitors -- and seeing ca 30 lines of code on their screen, because of the real estate eaten by their IDEs.

To add maiming to injury, these guys write in modern Cobol (a.k.a Java).

Not to mention that they can't print the code -- since it is 150+ chars wide(!) -- and browse it at a cafe. (I love my iPad, but It'll be iPad 3 before it is half as nice for browsing code [edit: as paper].)

I have about 2 full pages of code on the same size of monitor. Of scripting language. I doubt that I have abnormally bad memory or write too complex code... I just like to be productive.

Edit: oK, downvote if you want. But please also add a counter argument for wasting all that screen area?

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