Computer Science Canada

Taboo: java?
Author:  BenLi [ Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Taboo: java?
I'm starting to get into java and has recently noticed the lack of activity in the java forum. I've been around long enough to know that many of you know java. So why doesn't anybody actually post here?
Author:  [Gandalf] [ Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:34 pm ]
Post subject: 
Same thing as Turing I guess, just without the dozens of new users each day looking to get their homework done, and without any interested regular posters. Guess wtd's Java Sucksâ„¢ campaign had some sort of an effect. Smile

Personally, I don't mind Java, but meh, I'm learning a bit more of Ruby at the moment. Same as with Turing, if something pops up and I have something to say, I will reply, but otherwise like I said, meh.
Author:  wtd [ Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:01 am ]
Post subject: 
Whether you consider this good or bad... Java is a boring language. There is absolutely nothing interesting about Java technologically, nor is there anything particularly appealing about it from a pedagogical perspective.

When I deal with Java, it is purely out of necessity, or my desire to help. I wrote my Introduction to Java because I know that people will continue learning Java regardless of my feelings about it, and that if they are going to, they might as well learn it well.
Author:  gsquare567 [ Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
!!!
you guys r supposed to be total pros with programming!!!
javas in the rising... its speed is being upgraded, and it has much better security than C++... in fact... C++ has no security. the java team updates the language every week and its so much easier to learn than the other high-capability programming languages. wtf is ruby? and wtd... what r you learning thats so much better than java... cuz if its C++, your not gonna go far widdit. anyways, do what you want, but you totally discouraged any1 from learning java and thats not right, because its much better and easier than C++ or any other language. just a few words...
Author:  ericfourfour [ Mon Nov 06, 2006 9:16 pm ]
Post subject: 
No one is discouraging anyone from using Java. wtd only stated why Java was not a good language. He didn't tell people not to program with it. And he is entitled to his own opinion so I don't see anything wrong.

However, your post discourages me from it. It makes me think that Java is for people who can't capitalize their sentences and people who use the word "cuz" because it's 4 less characters. You even have the nerve to put down Ruby. If your going to put down a programming language make it Turing.

Also, c++ has security or else it would not be used in the industry (I'm sure more people can tell you about this topic).

Finally, I believe c++ is extremely easier than Java. (Making buffered readers never seemed too appealing to me). Also, Java is no better than any programming language. All programming languages have a better way of handling a problem (I'm sure wtd can tell you more about this topic).
Author:  wtd [ Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
I did not say Java is a good language or a bad language. Not in this thread, anyway.

What I did say is that it's boring. It brings nothing interesting to the table.

For those of us who are enthusiastic about programming languages, this is very much a bad thing. As such, we cannot generate any sincere enthusiasm for Java.

Disclaimer: I am discussing Java the language. See my Introduction to Java for why this distinction is important.
Author:  rdrake [ Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
gsquare567 wrote:
wtf is ruby?
A ruby is a shiny gem obtained by digging into the Earth. These were once pure atoms until the crushing forces of the Earth formed it into a gem and pushed it upwards. They are often found in jewellery.

For more information on the subject, please feel free to visit Wikipedia.
Author:  Dan [ Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
The way this site works is that it is a comunity and as such the sections that get the most antention are thos that are most popualr or needed in the comunity. As this site is one of the few if any that has help for turing, the turing section gets the most useage. Simpley put demand for a section makes it amount of content go up. Personaly i whould not say that the quality of the section is low, there are good tutorals and help question in the java section there are just not a large quanity of them.

If you find that this section needs more quanity or quality feal free to start righting tutorals or even simpley asking good questions will improve it. As a comunity it is not up to one or two peoleop to be constaly helping everyone and making all the tutorals but there should be sharing between every one. Every one asking questions, everyone helping and everyone contrubinting in what they can (idealy any how). It is all about learning.

Also to gsquare567, we are not sposted to be total pros we are peoleop who whont to learn about programing and help others to do the same. All progaming langues have somthing to teach us in my option even if some have more functioanaly then others. There is no one best progaming langue and a good progamer should know that you can not be limited to just one and that it is about the consecpts and underlining ideas and not about the syntext. In addtion you should be more respectfull of peoleop on this forum esptaily when you seem to be a realtivey new poster and staments like yours should at least try to back up there claims.

In short, if you do not like the quality or quanity of a section fix it. wtd is a great example of how a member of our comunity can exapened every ones knwogale to new langues and conespets by conrubiting to place where we where lacking. Thanks to him we have new sections and many many new tutorals that teach many peoleop about progmaing.

edit: to clear the topic up even more i do not dislike java at all. In fact i aucatly rather like java dispite some of the vaild complates by wtd (not that he is saying java is bad either). However i also like other progaming langues and learning new ones witch helps us devlop new skils and ideas.
Author:  batman [ Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Java
Yo, Im getting in too java right now and stopping turing. Turing was awesome but you can't go past a certain point with turing due to the lack of colours (256) and other things. Since ive worked a lot with java and am continuing to work with java, im going to bring it back to life!!!!!!!
if anyones has any questions about java problems post them and ill attempt to answer them all!!!! Very Happy
Author:  ericfourfour [ Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:49 pm ]
Post subject: 
Turing has many more than 256 colours. The ones to which you refer are predefined. I assume Turing has all of the colours you will ever need. Also, why not program in both? I program in Java and c++ but go back to Turing sometimes because of its simplicity when dealing with graphics.
Author:  Andy [ Tue Nov 07, 2006 7:11 pm ]
Post subject: 
ericfourfour wrote:
finally, I believe c++ is extremely easier than Java. (Making buffered readers never seemed too appealing to me).


you clearly do not know c++ very well.
Author:  ericfourfour [ Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:53 pm ]
Post subject: 
Andy wrote:
you clearly do not know c++ very well.

I guess I don't (maybe "extremely" was the wrong word). I said that because in school we do simple stuff and when I compare it to c++ it seems like there is much more to memorize in Java. To get input it is much more work than std::cin << input;. Also, I find, that using classes in c++ is easier than in java. Maybe that's just me but I find it more organized.

I realize I don't know much in c++ because I'm still wrapping my head around templates. Who knows how many numerous things there are to learn. I've heard that someone who has been programming in c++ for a year will say they know 90% of the language while someone who programmer in c++ for 10 years would say they only know 10% of the language (i guess that goes for programming languages in general).
Author:  wtd [ Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
Java is easier than C++, if you program in C++ like you'd program in Java. That was after all the goal of Sun in creating Java.

However, C++ offers options that Java does not, and simulating some of those things in Java can prove tremendously tedious.
Author:  batman [ Wed Nov 08, 2006 2:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Java
Quote:

Turing has many more than 256 colours. The ones to which you refer are predefined. I assume Turing has all of the colours you will ever need. Also, why not program in both? I program in Java and c++ but go back to Turing sometimes because of its simplicity when dealing with graphics


I do program both but it is time to move on to something much more challedging like java. Afterwards when i have somewhat mastered java I plan to learn c++. Its kind of hard learning multiple languages due to you end up mixing a few things back and forth. The only thing i like about turing compared to java is it is much simplier and doesnt require a ton of code to write. For example writing "hello world" in java requires way more code then writing it in turing. [/quote]
Author:  wtd [ Wed Nov 08, 2006 3:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Java
batman wrote:
Its kind of hard learning multiple languages due to you end up mixing a few things back and forth.


Rolling Eyes
Author:  Andy [ Wed Nov 08, 2006 4:39 pm ]
Post subject: 
Give him a break wtd, when you first pick up programming (not a programming language, but programming in general), its hard to get used to it. From his posts, you can clearly tell that he doesnt have much experience in anything.
Author:  wtd [ Wed Nov 08, 2006 4:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
I just roll my eyes because that's exactly how I learned. I learned more than one language at a time, and it actually made things easier. It made it easier to see concepts when I saw them expressed in more than one way.
Author:  [Gandalf] [ Wed Nov 08, 2006 7:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
Indeed, although maybe for the better in the end, learning two languages at the beginning can be the more difficult path. Let's say it's C++ and Java... Where do I put those brackets for the array again?

As for the rest of that post... Very cliche.
Quote:
I do program both but it is time to move on to something much more challedging like java. Afterwards when i have somewhat mastered java I plan to learn c++.
Author:  wtd [ Wed Nov 08, 2006 9:07 pm ]
Post subject: 
[Gandalf] wrote:
Indeed, although maybe for the better in the end, learning two languages at the beginning can be the more difficult path. Let's say it's C++ and Java... Where do I put those brackets for the array again?


I never advocate learning one Big Scary language at first, much less two. Smile
Author:  Andy [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:48 am ]
Post subject: 
just out of curiosity, what were the languages you started with wtd?
Author:  wtd [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:25 am ]
Post subject: 
TI-82 BASIC back in high school calculus. Our school had no computer science classes.

I worked with HTML and Javascript for a bit when I went to Cornell, but while I was there I studied Perl and then Python at the urging of a friend. All of those things I did on my own.
Author:  Null [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:16 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:

Finally, I believe c++ is extremely easier than Java.


At first, maybe. But do you have any idea how this code snippet works?
I sure as hell don't.

(It is a piece of code posted by a member named Narue at programmingforums.org)

c++:

#include <iostream>
#include <locale>

template <typename CharT>
class numfmt : public std::numpunct<CharT> {
    private:
        CharT sep_;
        int group_;

        CharT do_thousands_sep() const { return sep_; }
        std::string do_grouping() const { return std::string( 1, group_ ); }
    public:
        numfmt( CharT sep, int group )
            : sep_( sep ), group_( group ) {}
};

int main() {
    numfmt<char> *fmt = new numfmt<char>( ',', 3 );
    std::cout.imbue( std::locale( std::locale(), fmt ) );

    for ( double n = 0, i = 1; n < 10; n++, i *= 20 )
        std::cout << std::fixed << i << '\n';
}


The snippet alters the formatting of numbers so that a comma is displayed every 3 digits and then prints out a few sample numbers.

[quote=output]
1.000000
20.000000
400.000000
8,000.000000
160,000.000000
3,200,000.000000
64,000,000.000000
1,280,000,000.000000
25,600,000,000.000000
512,000,000,000.000000
[/quote]
Author:  ericfourfour [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:43 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Finally, I believe c++ is extremely easier than Java.
I already went over this. I'm not going to explain it again.

About the code snippet. No i don't know how it works but I'm sure if I took the time to look it over I could (I'd have to look in the numpunct class and locale to get a full idea). Meh, why don't I take a shot at it?

c++:
numfmt( CharT sep, int group )
            : sep_( sep ), group_( group ) {}
This part of the code initializes sep_, and group_ using an initialization list. Sep_ is the separator (the comma in this case) and group_ is the amount of characters that are grouped between the commas. This means that you could potentially have a comma (or even an exclamation mark) every 5 characters.

c++:
CharT do_thousands_sep() const { return sep_; }
        std::string do_grouping() const { return std::string( 1, group_ ); }
This part lost me. It looks like the first one just returns the separator and the second one creates a string with the group_ length and then returns it.

And that's about as far as I got. The rest I couldn't figure out without looking at the class inherited or what is in locale.
Author:  [Gandalf] [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:08 pm ]
Post subject: 
ericfourfour wrote:
Quote:
Finally, I believe c++ is extremely easier than Java.
I already went over this. I'm not going to explain it again.

It's just that this is such a ridiculous statement, most often made by people who haven't explored the languages beyond:
c++:
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::string name;
    std::cout << "Please enter your name: ";
    std::cin >> name;
    std::cout << "Your name is: " << name << std::endl;
    return 0;   
}

And:
Java:
import java.io.*;
public class Input {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        String name;
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
        System.out.print("Please enter your name: ");
        name = in.readLine();
        System.out.println("Your name is: " + name);
    }
}

And don't know about Java's Scanner class:
Java:
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Input {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String name;
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.print("Please enter your name: ");
        name = in.nextLine();
        System.out.println("Your name is: " + name);
    }
}

Not to say that that applies to you, of course...
Author:  ericfourfour [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:38 pm ]
Post subject: 
That's pretty good Gandalf. I'll have to look into it.

Anyway, I was using input as a simple example. It's not complicated (I even made a wrapper for it so I don't have to write so many lines every day). Maybe, Java isn't as hard as I think.

When its written out in a comparison (the one Gandalf displayed) Java actually makes more sense. I don't even know what the <<, or >> does. All I know is it gets the input and when used with the string stream they point toward the variable being changed and point away from the variable being assigned the value.

I guess I used the wrong wording. If c++ is difficult my wording would have said java is extremely difficult. Which it isn't. In my opinion working with c++ more organized which in turn makes it easier, but that's just me.
Author:  wtd [ Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:54 pm ]
Post subject: 
ericfourfour wrote:
I don't even know what the <<, or >> does.


Considering how important these operators are in terms of standard C++, you'd be well advised to learn more about them.

<< is the insertion operator, and >> is the extraction operator. << inserts a value into an output stream. >> extracts values from an input stream.

As fucntions can be overloaded in C++, so too can operators. The << and >> operators are overloaded for different types of streams and values.

Consider:

code:
class Foo { };

ostream& operator<<(ostream& out, const Foo& f)
{
   return out << 42;
}

int main()
{
   Foo f;

   cout << f << endl;
}


What do you think this program will output?
Author:  ericfourfour [ Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:20 pm ]
Post subject: 
wtd wrote:
What do you think this program will output?

I have no clue but I'm guessing 42 but the >> was never used so it may be nothing.

If it is done the way I think its done, you overloaded the >> operator and somehow it was called by using <<. It took in the parameters cout and f. By using cout it output 42.

What was the point of having

c++:
const Foo& f

I can only speculate here but I guess it is so it only gets called if you use Foo. Is this correct?
Author:  wtd [ Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
ericfourfour wrote:
wtd wrote:
What do you think this program will output?

I have no clue but I'm guessing 42 but the >> was never used so it may be nothing.


Oops. Typo. Smile
Author:  ericfourfour [ Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:10 pm ]
Post subject: 
Phew, I thought I was seeing things. It makes a lot more sense now. Very Happy
Author:  wtd [ Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:28 pm ]
Post subject: 
Consider also:

code:
class Foo
{
   private:
      int _bar;

   public:
      int bar() const
      {
         return _bar;
      }

      friend ostream& operator<<(ostream& out, const Foo& f);
      friend istream& operator>>(istream& in, Foo& f);
};

int main()
{
   Foo f;

   cin >> f;
   cout << f << endl;
}

ostream& operator<<(ostream& out, const Foo& f)
{
   return out << f._bar;
}

istream& operator>>(istream& in, Foo& f)
{
   return in >> f._bar;
}
Author:  ericfourfour [ Sat Nov 11, 2006 12:50 am ]
Post subject: 
That is awesome wtd! On the outside it merely gets input and then outputs it on the screen but on the inside there is much more. I can basically choose the input or output stream I want to use. That could be a file or even the console. I could use something like this for debugging. I could simply choose between input/output from/to a file or regular input from the user and output to the screen. That was one of the most useful things I've learned in a while.

:


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