Category: Geeks r Us
Hi guys. I'm back with yet another topic of geekery, this being languages we use to write software. There are many such languages. What are your favorites?
For me, I enjoy a good squeeze from Python now and again, and am trying to learn BGT and C. But my all-time favorite has been batch files: simple ways to whip up programs in a hury, and execute command line tasks as well.
Assembly language for the IBM System 360 and successors. It makes you appreciate compilers a lot more.
How do you program in assembly? I've heard it's a bear, but haven't checked for any books on it. Any suggestions?
For the old ibm360/370 computers the bible is/was "The principles of operation." That's how I learned programming: I read that goddam book from cover to cover.
Today I like auto hotkey or autoit. Sorry, I don't know the URLs but google is your good ol' buddy.
I especially like auto hotkey because, not only can you write scripts to perform certain activities, you can assign key combinations to set them off. Much much better than Microsoft's method of assigning hotkeys through a program's properties.
You can even create screens, though my first attempts have been total flops.
Once you get a file (wich has the extention of .ahk) to work, you can compile it into a .com file and share it with your friends whether or not they have autohotkey installed on their system.
Bob
I've got a few different languages, it really depends on what I want. I really hate batch files: they're antiquated and fairly useless without jumping through hoops. If I really need to do something, I just use Python.
Web dev: python or PHP. I love Python in this area, especially coupled with Flask, but it tends to be a lot slower and heavier than PHP.
Systems level programming: c++, Python, c#. I really like all of these languages for the ease they provide. My first language was c++ and I've always sort of stuck with it, choosing to write my engine in it.
Scripting: Python or Lua. I've tried to start learning Lua a lot better since it is really light weight (Python is a beast to embed).
Fun languages: Haskell. I love the idea of functional languages (you can sometimes apply this to Python, but it's a whole new paradigm).
Low level: c and assembly: My operating system thus far is mainly written in C, with a lot of extra assembly utilities. I'm also working on a brainfuck interpreter in 64-bit assembly, for the hell of it.
Oh, dear god! I've looked at a bit of code in Brainfuck, and my mind said: "Dude, walk away! This ain't for you, chum."
I would love to learn QuickBASIC 4.5 and also batch programming. I have tutorials for both.
There's no good way to learn System 360 assembly language unless you get hired by a company that uses Mainframes. If you want to learn X86 assembly take a look at
http://www.plantation-productions.com/Webster/www.artofasm.com/index.html
What in hell would you do with QBasic? Learn something not so antiquated. Batch isn't bad, but it's not really as powerful as bash/anything else. I guess you could always learn windows power shell.
I would make DOS programs, of course. I have no interest in Windows programming, or at least not in working with graphical programming languages. QuickBASIC is easy enough to understand as a beginning language. I might also learn C or C++, but that's in the future, and it all depends on my comfort level. As for batch, I'm not sure if there is a different type or not, but I'm referring to editing the autoexec.bat files to do certain things at the command prompt.
ah yes, I forgot your unhealthy fetish for dos and everything antiquated. Well, there's really no use in QBasic apart from that, so I guess whatever floats your boat. Also autoexec.bat is no longer used after windows XP, if it was even used there. I seem to remember some extra dos stuff, but I think they were phasing that crap out in terms of editing autoexec to add stuff to boot. Much cleaner ways to do that now.