Computer Science Canada

SAST (Students Against Stupid Turing)
Author:  bugzpodder [ Wed Sep 17, 2003 8:19 pm ]
Post subject:  SAST (Students Against Stupid Turing)
its a club where once you join, you vow to not to touch turing for the rest of your lives. anyone wanna join? Wink
Author:  Tony [ Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:15 pm ]
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heh, "Turing" got cut off in the "latest posts" window and at first I though it was "Students Against Stupid Teachers"

which makes more sence - since its not so much the language thats the problem - its the way its being tought in schools.
Author:  Amailer [ Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:40 pm ]
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IM IN!
Author:  Catalyst [ Wed Sep 17, 2003 10:00 pm ]
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wish i could (stupid school Evil or Very Mad )
Author:  Homer_simpson [ Wed Sep 17, 2003 11:29 pm ]
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I'd say it's stupid =S... u know not everyone that takes gr 10 compsci know everything about programming... so i dun think it's a bad idea to start with it...
Author:  Mazer [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 8:01 am ]
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i think it's great. if turing were a person (the 'language' not the mathematician) i'd say something like "hey turing, how are you? doesn't matter, you should be dead." anyways, i would like to join but then i wouldn't be able to help people who are trying to learn turing.

maybe i'll just do the next best thing and hand out illegal copies of turing to everyone Wink
Author:  Dan [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 12:54 pm ]
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Well i dont think it whould be a great idea to cut out turing all thougther. i mean it is a good langue for beigners to progaming and it dose let you do some stuff with graficks easly. The main problem is tha lack of good resoreces for teaching turing and progaming.

*note that dans coments in this post are havely infulcted by realcnet dealings with holth soft Shocked *
Author:  PaddyLong [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 3:09 pm ]
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I'd have to agree with Homer on this one .. . I think that turing is a really good language for people to start learning programming in ... the syntax is really easy, it's powerful enough to learn most of the major concepts of programming ...

could you imagine someone who struggles with turing trying to learn to program with something like c++? they would be so busy trying to make sure their syntax is right instead of learning to program

and other things that are easy to use, but have bells n whistles (such as vb) are pretty much useless for learning to program ... a couple people I've talked to in my program took vb in high school and they are struggling with algorithms/psuedocode for very very basic programs
Author:  Tony [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 5:30 pm ]
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I think we had a discussion quite a while ago on compsci curiculum in schools and figured that Turing is good for the first year programming.

Dan does raise a good point that the biggest lack of that language is resource availablity for both students and teachers. Just compsci.ca and Turing Syntax Reference book by holt Confused
Author:  PaddyLong [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 6:07 pm ]
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my compsci teacher wrote tutorials for the different things ... pretty much a book I guess
Author:  poly [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 6:32 pm ]
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ahhh darn it and to think I was going to come in here and say something bright like:

Well I am sure when kids look at PHP, C++ etc they say "holy crap there is a lot to learn" and some people might feel discouraged to try to learn them. So I think Turing is a good idea and great way to start off. Yes it's very very basic, but what you do in Turing (like IF statements) is basically the same in each language.

and than I was going to proceed to rambell on about nonsense, but I see this topic doesn't need that
Author:  Impyshock [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 7:48 pm ]
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i am in gr 11 ICS 3M1 and its easy, i have never took compsci before but i have done so much on turing, its really easy to grasp and you can get the teacher really angry with some of the stuff you can make...

here is one i did and put on the shared Turing folder-

code:
put "Welcome to the Impys magic penis machine,"
put "it will determine the length of your slong."

put "Please enter your shoe size "..
get size

put "Impys Penis is,",size,"inches longer than yours!"
Author:  krishon [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:11 pm ]
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whoa...are we even allowed to have those types of avatars, lol
Author:  Amailer [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:16 pm ]
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ya...i blocked it -.-
Author:  Dan [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:32 pm ]
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congraltions Impyshock, you are the 1st user ever to lose there avatars rights on this fourm. Peoleop use this fourm at school and i get in enogth shit about it with out avatars like that.
Author:  Blade [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 10:23 pm ]
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darnit... people taht aren't on here 24/7 miss some stuff
Author:  Tony [ Thu Sep 18, 2003 10:28 pm ]
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well the advantage of a forum over say IRC is that atleast you know you missed something Wink
Author:  PaddyLong [ Fri Sep 19, 2003 11:56 am ]
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lol I like this Impys fellow. he can stick around for a while. 8)

his program was soo stupid and so is Impys ... but it's funny about his stupidity Laughing
Author:  poly [ Fri Sep 19, 2003 12:42 pm ]
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ahhh damn it.... you mean now I can't save it and.... ummmm I mean Oh that sucks to loose it!
Author:  rizzix [ Fri Sep 19, 2003 12:57 pm ]
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ok... btw i started out learning programing with java.. weird..

anyways thats just to prove u that you don't really need Turing. but hey i think it is stupid to have a club against a programming language. it's like saying turing is a religion but u prefer C++/VB/etc instead, and thus down with turing. the worst thing u can do is treat a LANGUAGE as a religion. it is sick and crazy. a lot a people do it. thats the true meaning of the word "geek".

a computer language is created by humans and not by God. treat is as a tool and not something to worship.. etc..

But i got to agree. Turing is not the best designed language around. I mean if you need a BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) like syntax for a language use VB.net. It's a better choice.
Author:  naoki [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:13 pm ]
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i think turing screwed me royally now that i hafta learn c++
the basic ideas are all good, but the syntax was so gorgeously simple compared to the stupid complications c++ gives me. i mean, when we hafta use the 3 different brackets it's gonna suck compared to only 1 beforehand.

let alone the fact that the syntax formulas are so damn complicated, something along of the lines CDmPEl (int foRTue) is basically all i see.
Author:  PaddyLong [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:55 pm ]
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now could you imagine trying to learn the basic constructs when you had to worry about the complicated syntax?
Author:  octopi [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 5:06 pm ]
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Amailer wrote:
ya...i blocked it -.-


How, and why did you 'block' it?

Wasn't it just a small picture of a bunch of girl's chests?
Author:  Amailer [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 5:38 pm ]
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How?
Mozilla..

Why?
Non of your Beezinass!
Author:  Tony [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 5:54 pm ]
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its true that the transition between turing's simple syntax and something like C++ or Java might be overwhealming for some people, but you gotta see if from school board's perspective (which I agree in advance that it sucks).

I mean starting off with Java right away would be awesome, but what about all those kids who strugle with forloops in turing? Which is usually half the class Confused Try explaining multiple constructs and instances to them Twisted Evil

Point is - being above average makes you a minority, and schools dont care for minorities. Hey - I'd like graphics to be taught in schools, but noone is teaching 3DSMAX. On the rear occasion some teacher downloads Photoshop, they only teach how to crop images and maybe adding text to photographs. Mad
Author:  PaddyLong [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 6:24 pm ]
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what tony said is so true Sad the closest my school had to graphics was comm tech ... which the teacher knew shit all about anything in ... but we did do a little more than crop images and add text hehe ... we did do some 3d stuff, unfortunately though, his 3d app of choice is lightwave (/me shudders) but he did have an old copy of 3ds 2.5 lying around that I convinced him to allow me to use in grade 10 ... all the 3d stuff I did for grade 11 I did at home with max 4 (except for a landscape that I did with bryce) ... but the big graphics project (for grade 11) was to make something 3d and then put a photo of yourself into the image in some way (mine was a dragon flying through some mountains with me riding it) .. grade 10 there was one where you had to put your face and name onto some image (I replaced keanu reeves's face on the cover of the matrix with mine and changed his name to mine) and then the other was to make some 3d animation with your name in it
then I just didn't take comm tech in grade 12 because I decided there was no point in taking a course where I knew more than the teacher about it (I'm not just being stuck up either... that teacher really was useless)
Author:  Tony [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 6:50 pm ]
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well if I would stop taking courses where I know more then the teacher, I would have dropped compsci 10 and never took 11 or 12 or AP Wink

but hey, easy marks and school time to work on compsci Laughing
Author:  Asok [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 8:23 pm ]
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Turing for the win! I'm never touching c++ again due to the simplicity of Turing! hooray!
Author:  rizzix [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 9:59 pm ]
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O Lord! help him please Laughing
Author:  Tony [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 10:00 pm ]
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yeah, well turing is just a fansy calculator really.

You need C++ for power, hardware access and 3D graphics
VB for its GUI
Java for its portability

Turing has a simplified syntax, but at a cost of functionality. Earlier this year turing was proven in not being functional enough to even complete some of CCC problems Confused
Author:  Andy [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 10:11 pm ]
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turing isnt that bad, i'm gonna use both turing and c++ on the CCC this year. some of the program on there can be done with turing much faster than c++
Author:  bugzpodder [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 10:46 pm ]
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dodge_tomahawk wrote:
turing isnt that bad, i'm gonna use both turing and c++ on the CCC this year. some of the program on there can be done with turing much faster than c++

this is ambiguous, since C++ is infinitely times faster than Turing Very Happy

stick to what you know, otherwise you'll get lost on the syntaxes (in Turing the compiler will catch your mistakes but in C++ you are royally screwed if you start index at 1)

i do not recommend mixing Turing with C++ unless you really know what you are doing. btw if you arent striking for speed, use Turing. personally i am more familar with C++ so i will use that. this reminds me of the last years the substring problem, when Turing cannot read in a string of more than 256 characters... -- but not very many ppl know that...
even if you could, then turing would still be too slow to use brute force on that problem, which could mean stage 2 or not stage 2 for anybody.
Author:  Tony [ Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:15 pm ]
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hey bugz, dont have to be soo mean Crying or Very sad

(btw, that substring question is the one I was refering to in my earlier post)

I've got the input with C++, but I think I messed up on my loops cuz it looked like it would take half a day for it to calculate the answer Confused

And I was 1 point off from cutoff mark... damn... but I made mistakes in other questions too Mad
Author:  PaddyLong [ Sun Sep 21, 2003 2:03 am ]
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tony wrote:
yeah, well turing is just a fansy calculator really.


if you get down to it any computer really is just a fancy calculator Razz
Author:  bugzpodder [ Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:25 pm ]
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"dont have to be so mean"? what did i say? Embarassed
Turing's syntax is strikingly similar to Pascals, which can be extended to Delphi.
and pascal is accepted as a standard programming language in competitions, and is probably faster than Turing
Author:  bugzpodder [ Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:30 pm ]
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if u want to do C++ in CCC, especially the harder question:
learn the language, espcially STL
learn the algorithms

there is no easy way. otherwise you can almost expect that you wont make it to stage 2 (I was very lucky two years ago i made the cutoff, tony was not so lucky as he missed by 1)
Author:  Tony [ Sun Sep 21, 2003 2:31 pm ]
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yeah bugz, you gotta tutor me for CCC next year Wink

Just the useful algorythms and such. This going to be my last try at CCC and I wanna make it to stage 2 next year 8)
Author:  bugzpodder [ Sun Sep 21, 2003 4:33 pm ]
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Dont worry, you'll make it next year. just need a bit of luck (try to be careful and not make any mistakes)
Author:  Tony [ Sun Sep 21, 2003 4:56 pm ]
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I know what you mean. I didnt pay that much attention last time and made couple of stupid mistakes. What really sucks is that every single one caused me to fail Evil or Very Mad

Like in that stupid poem question, I left out unrealistic cases like 1 letter per line. I just forgot to think of such things.
Author:  krishon [ Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:32 am ]
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lol....everyone's been there
Author:  Corybu [ Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:49 pm ]
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At the risk of soundling like a moron, whats CCC? Im assuming some sort of coding conetst...
Author:  Tony [ Tue Sep 23, 2003 11:00 pm ]
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Canadian Computing Competition

you can check out a description of it I wrote up in Contests forum.

It takes place once a year (~February) and is organized by U of Waterloo.
Author:  krishon [ Thu Sep 25, 2003 5:53 pm ]
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i guess this is where i say GO JAVA!!! rizzix can vouch for dat Wink
Author:  Tony [ Thu Sep 25, 2003 6:49 pm ]
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actually I've already messaged them, and someone replied saying that "its possible that JAVA might be allowed on stage 2"

Very Happy

which would be awesome, provided we get to use our own IDEs (eclipce ofcourse)
Author:  rizzix [ Thu Sep 25, 2003 7:41 pm ]
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Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil


mocking me of course hehe Wink

Twisted Evil Twisted Evil
Author:  Tony [ Thu Sep 25, 2003 7:57 pm ]
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rizzix wrote:

mocking me of course hehe Wink


wha? why? Confused

If I was to get into CCC stage 2 next year, I'd want to use eclipse 8)
Author:  krishon [ Thu Sep 25, 2003 7:59 pm ]
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lol, i think it wuz my post
Author:  BlAcK TuRtLe [ Wed Oct 08, 2003 6:58 pm ]
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turing is an ok language. I found that turing was easy to learn and now im doing java and find most of the structures etc are the same with just different words. Head Bang
Author:  rizzix [ Wed Oct 08, 2003 7:35 pm ]
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uhm.. actually there is a difference.. you'll get to that i guess deeper in the course. although most of it is pretty much the same concepts.. but you won't get too fool around with modules in java.
Author:  krishon [ Sat Oct 11, 2003 9:59 am ]
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yah...java and c++ are interchangable, once you know one, it won't be too hard to switch to another
Author:  Andy [ Sat Oct 11, 2003 1:57 pm ]
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man, now when i program in turing, i keep on puting semicolons at the end of each line...
Author:  rizzix [ Sat Oct 11, 2003 8:35 pm ]
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krishon wrote:
yah...java and c++ are interchangable, once you know one, it won't be too hard to switch to another


got to agree on that, but don't get too carried away with that illusion. I too thought they were the same, in fact exactly the same, except for a few features added and a few removed. But i was wrong.

After i learnt c++, i realized there is a slight difference that makes programming c++ a bit uncomfortable after your used to java. In other words there are some things in java that appear to behave just as is, in c++ at first sight, but taking a closer look at the situation there is a difference.

One main factor for this is garbage collection (got to miss that feature in c++), because of GC (garbage collection) you don't have to worry about chain method call that return a new object in java, but in c++ it is ideal to destroy all new objects (objects created on the heap). This is one of the ways flexibility is restricted in c++. It's not much but once ur used to it, you feel it.

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