Re: [SLUG] [PIG] First post

From: John Kinary (john.kinary@verizon.net)
Date: Mon May 01 2006 - 12:38:18 EDT


Paul M Foster wrote:
> petetheisen wrote:
>> Dylan William Hardison wrote:
>>> On 4/26/06, Mario Lombardo <mario@alienscience.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wednesday 26 April 2006 21:55, Dylan William Hardison wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> if (SDL_BYTEORDER == SDL_BIG_ENDIAN) {
>>>>> color = SDL_MapRGBA(dst->format, colorptr[0], colorptr[1],
>>>>> colorptr[2], colorptr[3]);
>>>>> } else {
>>>>> color = SDL_MapRGBA(dst->format, colorptr[3], colorptr[2],
>>>>> colorptr[1], colorptr[0]);
>>>>> }
>>>>>
>>>> What language is that? Ha! The non-programmer speaks.
>>>
>>> it is C.
>>
>> Hi Dylan, Everybody!
>>
>> What is your recommendation for a basic tutorial in C or "pig"
>> programming (i.e: whatever we will be using on pig), for that matter.
>> I need to start somewhere. Are these free ones any good?
>>
>> http://www.techbooksforfree.com/ccpp.shtml
>>
>
> As always, the best tutorial for C is "The C Programming Language" by
> Kernighan and Richie. This is the original book on the language. It is
> concise and not too hard to follow.
>
>> I have a charity project that I have been working on for ten years. I
>> have a data design and a number of tables but I lack programming
>> ability to get anything out of these.
>>
>
> Let me offer this: For years, I've programmed in C. It's the language
> I'm most comfortable with. But one of the biggest problems with C
> (from my perspective) is that C has no native user interface library.
> This is by design. But to write any sort of kewl program, you have to
> link in the curses library or wxwidgets, or the fox toolkit, or some
> other interface library, particularly if you want something GUI. Using
> these libraries is a whole education in itself. Very complicated, and
> according to most people, most of these libraries tend to render
> differently depending on the platform.
>
> Enter PHP. PHP has a syntax nearly identical to C, and uses many of
> the same functions to do its work. PHP is designed to work in a
> browser, and allows you to embed HTML in its scripts to make pages
> look the way you want in your browser. You can code nice looking
> applications in a fraction of the time it would take you with C, and
> they'll run on any platform with a browser.
>
>> On a related matter, there is some discussion on C, a little about C+
>> and rather more on C++? What makes C + or ++?
>>
>
> As already mentioned, there is no such thing as C+. It's called C++,
> and was built by Bjarne Stroustrup as a follow-on to C. I believe it
> was originally called "C with Classes", but eventually was turned into
> C++, in a play on the C increment operator, "++". C++ adds
> object-orientation and classes to C and extends its syntax in various
> ways. You can still write well-formed C programs and have them compile
> and run in a C++ compiler. If you don't intend to become a
> professional programmer, I'd suggest C rather than C++, as C is easier
> to understand. The intricacies of classes and objects can be quite
> difficult to grasp at times. Note that the linux kernel is written in
> C, so it's quite good enough for a major project with millions of
> lines of code.
>
> Also, though I can't speak for Dylan, I imagine he intended the PIG
> posts to be language-agnostic.
>
> Paul
>
"The C Programming Language" is a very good book. Make sure that you get
the Second Edition. It covers the ANSI C standards. The ANSI standards
have changed over the years so this book might have a newer edition. I
have taught programming languages before. I don't think "The C
Programming Language" is a book for non-programmers. I would go to a
bookstore, that has a good selection of IT books, and get one that, for
you, is easy to understand.

John
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