----------------------------------- wtd Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:00 am What's the most shocking thing about language X? ----------------------------------- So, when you learned a new programming language, what were the things that most shocked you about it? ----------------------------------- Tony Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:21 am ----------------------------------- One of the things that has shocked me about Turing is that it is interpreted and then compiled as C++. Seeing plaintext comments about Visual Studio inside the Turing IDE file is just hilarious :lol: ----------------------------------- Martin Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:29 am ----------------------------------- Scheme. The functional syntax. Perl. Perl. ----------------------------------- rizzix Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:15 am ----------------------------------- [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_programming_language]J. The gibberish. (i gave up learning it) ----------------------------------- Martin Tue Dec 27, 2005 2:23 am ----------------------------------- I sat down and spent a good 8 hours one day trying to learn Brainfuck. It's well named, to say the least. ----------------------------------- Cervantes Tue Dec 27, 2005 9:06 am ----------------------------------- Ruby. Chunky bacon. ;) ----------------------------------- MysticVegeta Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:21 am ----------------------------------- The complicated IO and output commands of Java compared to Turing and C++ Edit: woot!! Edit button atlast. By the ways, wtd you didnt say anything.. :S ----------------------------------- md Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:49 am ----------------------------------- Basic: There are actually pointers if you dig deep enough :shock: ----------------------------------- [Gandalf] Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:06 pm ----------------------------------- MysticVegeta: The edit button has always been there in the general programming section, just not in any 'help' section. Cornflake: Really? :shock: Surprising... Hmm... Let's start off simple. JavaScript - OOP! ----------------------------------- wtd Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:49 pm ----------------------------------- There's not a whole lot that still surprises me. :) That Micrsoft is planning to incorporate anonymous functions, comprehensions and type inferencing in C# 3.0 is a bit of a surprise, though. ----------------------------------- Martin Tue Dec 27, 2005 6:32 pm ----------------------------------- You want suprising? Write a 4DL program that actually compiles: http://www.cliff.biffle.org/esoterica/4dl.html 4DL turns programming into not only a visual task, but an exercise in visualizing higher-order dimensional spaces--which everyone does in their free time, right? ----------------------------------- wtd Wed Dec 28, 2005 6:40 pm ----------------------------------- Sounds a bit like a four dimensional 'Funge. ----------------------------------- rizzix Thu Dec 29, 2005 2:25 pm ----------------------------------- "Instant job security" -- watch out for those theoretical physicists.. ----------------------------------- bugzpodder Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:05 pm ----------------------------------- There's not a whole lot that still surprises me. :) That Micrsoft is planning to incorporate anonymous functions, comprehensions and type inferencing in C# 3.0 is a bit of a surprise, though. I've being reading up on some .net stuff (JIT, IL, CLR), and the architecture is in itself quiet impressive to me. More impressive than, say Java, IMHO. ----------------------------------- wtd Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:18 pm ----------------------------------- It's not too horrendous. Keep in mind, though, that with mainstream languages you're generally seeing something about 20 years behind the mainstream. Talk to old Lisp or Smalltalk programmers and they will not seem nearly so impressed. :) ----------------------------------- rizzix Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:23 pm ----------------------------------- CLR technology is new though. Well in Java' its a bit different. Languages built for the VM run on the VM and are compatible with the Java Lang. You get the same effect. But there's one tiny problem. Only a small number of languages (in terms of "kinds" not in terms of quantity) can be compatible with the JAva lang.. so you don't have many choices.. ----------------------------------- wtd Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:45 pm ----------------------------------- You can use any exotic programming language you wish with the JVM, as long as you limit yourself to features provided by the Java programming language. ----------------------------------- wtd Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:09 am ----------------------------------- I hate to sound like a broken record, but I'm really shocked at how quickly I'm coming to enjoy Io, and for that matter, how well it's been received here. I've previously found O'Caml the best balance I'd yet found for educational purposes, but Io may supplant it in that regard. ----------------------------------- rizzix Tue Jan 03, 2006 11:01 pm ----------------------------------- Yea, tell me about it. And Io has a cleaner syntax too. Either way, i found some other "cool and interesting" languages: [url=http://slate.tunes.org/index.html]Slate an improvement over smalltalk (a prototype based programming language sporting Multiple Dispatch Methods.. interesting stuff) , and [url=http://factorcode.org/]Factor a clean concatenative programming language (strange but cool syntax). ----------------------------------- wtd Tue Jan 03, 2006 11:36 pm ----------------------------------- Oh, with O'Caml it was never really about the syntax, though I do think it's reasonably straightforward. It was about being able to teach in a very linear manner, with the simple stuff not requiring use of advanced language features. This is my primary problem with something like Java or even Ruby as a teaching language. OOP in these languages brings a fair amount of complexity, and you can't do much of anything without objects. Io is sort of the same way, but it's so simple I don't think that's much of a hindrance.