May 21, 2010 at 11:36 am
Phil, as for shouting the code across the crowed room you put me in mind of the late Victor Borge. The "Phonetic Punctuation" would come in handy. Also you could use sign language. Then there is that old IBM-360 routine CSMC. That's Convert String to Morse Code.
Someone else has already mentioned COBOL but who else has actually written code in APL?
ATBCharles Kincaid
May 21, 2010 at 11:50 am
who else has actually written code in APL?
Crosses himself and shudders...
May 21, 2010 at 11:51 am
Seen it? I drink several cups a day! 😉
Ralph D. Wilson II
Development DBA
"Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the ax."
A. Lincoln
May 21, 2010 at 11:58 am
Charles Kincaid (5/21/2010)
Phil, as for shouting the code across the crowed room you put me in mind of the late Victor Borge. The "Phonetic Punctuation" would come in handy. Also you could use sign language. Then there is that old IBM-360 routine CSMC. That's Convert String to Morse Code.Someone else has already mentioned COBOL but who else has actually written code in APL?
I have. Also, SNOBOL, LISP, Prolog, GPSS, and several others.
APL was, without a doubt, THE Worst misconception foisted on programmers. Yes, it was powerful . . . but the only way to debug an APL program was to rewrite it! :-/
I had a friend who was going for a PhD in Computer Science and he was looking for a PhD Thesis. One day, due to a typo, his APL program spewed forth with all manner of outrageous results. upon investigation, he discovered that a "circle dot product" had been coded as a "circle dot quare root". After correcting the problem, he got to wondering just exactly what a "circle dot quare root" did, so he tried some experimenting. Net result was, he did his doctoral thesis on the a "circle dot quare root". (He finally figured out how the calculation was done . . . and figured out that there was no earthly use for it but it was a "consistent calculation". :-P:w00t: )
Ralph D. Wilson II
Development DBA
"Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the ax."
A. Lincoln
May 21, 2010 at 12:14 pm
dcraday (5/21/2010)
For djackson -Now you're making me think - a dangerous thing most times.I don't know why you'd want a variable that is so much the same - it would make the code hard to read and debug.
VB considers MyNewVariable and MYNewVariable the same and won't compile.
I neglected to specify OPTION ExPlIcIt GRIN
Further, I have debugged enough garbadge to know I would never name two variables like that. However, there are plenty of times developers have explained to me the reasoning behind their variable names and while I understood their thinking, I wouldn't do it that way. Still, you code how you want, I code how I want, and we should be free to do so.
I once worked with a guy who, coding in C/C++, was unable to write an IF statement and get it to work. The reason is that (assuming I recall correctly) he would write:
IF (X=3) ...
He spent hours a day debugging this issue. And then he would make the same mistake the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Months went by. We finally got tired of hearing him grunt and scream and cry. We told him to write his code like this:
IF (3==X)
This way, when he erroneously wrote (3=X) the compiler would tell him he was an idiot and show him where.
He refused to adapt. We thought he was stupid for not wanting to make a change that was highly recommended in Code Complete, that would prevent stupid mistakes, and save hours of wasted time every single day.
Still, it was his choice. Then again, his boss eventually made a choice as well.
Dave
May 21, 2010 at 12:27 pm
djackson 22568 (5/21/2010)[hr
I once worked with a guy who, coding in C/C++, was unable to write an IF statement and get it to work. The reason is that (assuming I recall correctly) he would write:
IF (X=3) ...
He spent hours a day debugging this issue. And then he would make the same mistake the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Months went by. We finally got tired of hearing him grunt and scream and cry.
.
.
.
Still, it was his choice. Then again, his boss eventually made a choice as well.
I think I worked with that guy, too!
Performing the same steps over and over and yet expecting different results is one of the definitions of insanity, isn't it? 😉
Ralph D. Wilson II
Development DBA
"Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the ax."
A. Lincoln
May 21, 2010 at 12:34 pm
djackson 22568 (5/21/2010)
dcraday (5/21/2010)
For djackson -Now you're making me think - a dangerous thing most times.I don't know why you'd want a variable that is so much the same - it would make the code hard to read and debug.
VB considers MyNewVariable and MYNewVariable the same and won't compile.
I neglected to specify OPTION ExPlIcIt GRIN
Further, I have debugged enough garbadge to know I would never name two variables like that. However, there are plenty of times developers have explained to me the reasoning behind their variable names and while I understood their thinking, I wouldn't do it that way. Still, you code how you want, I code how I want, and we should be free to do so.
I once worked with a guy who, coding in C/C++, was unable to write an IF statement and get it to work. The reason is that (assuming I recall correctly) he would write:
IF (X=3) ...
He spent hours a day debugging this issue. And then he would make the same mistake the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Months went by. We finally got tired of hearing him grunt and scream and cry. We told him to write his code like this:
IF (3==X)
This way, when he erroneously wrote (3=X) the compiler would tell him he was an idiot and show him where.
He refused to adapt. We thought he was stupid for not wanting to make a change that was highly recommended in Code Complete, that would prevent stupid mistakes, and save hours of wasted time every single day.
Still, it was his choice. Then again, his boss eventually made a choice as well.
True, but you can't really compare the issue of case sensitivity to someone who can't code correctly in the first place. Apples and Oranges. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 21, 2010 at 12:54 pm
True, but you can't really compare the issue of case sensitivity to someone who can't code correctly in the first place. Apples and Oranges. 😀
I am not doing that. I am comparing the debate on care sensitivity to the debate on Hungarian notation, whether constants should come before variables, whether the ending brace should be indented to match the opening brace...
Examples I provide are meant to clarify, and hopefully entertain some.
Dave
May 21, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Well, there is no reason to shout programming code at someone across the room or dictate it to them over the phone when we have e-mail and instant messaging.
One thing I can say is that I'm grateful that SQL Server is case insensitive by default. A while back, one of my projects was developing reports from the company's new Oracle data warehouse which started out with CasE SensiTive CollaTion enabled. The first several weeks of the project, there seemed to be an inordinate (and humorous being a SQL Server guy and passive observer) amount of IT departmental drama and chatter going on between database admins and developers regarding case sensitivity, sargable index searches, and an issue where pre-existing legacy data and SQL was all UPPER CASE while the new applications were allowing Proper Case data to be entered.
At one point a guy even proposed that all data should be stored in the database as UPPER CASE and then the developers could simply use CSS style sheets to convert it all back to Proper Case on the front end. He even issued an ominous warning that we would take a HUGE performance hit, if we switched to case insensitive collation. Having always worked on case insensitive environments, I can't vouch for wether any of this made a lick of sense. However, eventually they bit the bullet and converted everything on the Oracle server to case insensitive at much time and expense. Everyone cheered (well at least the developers and business users) and never looked back.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
May 23, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Regarding shouting code across the room, or a noisy phone line, why not simply use the ascii codes in their binary form ? Pretty easy to hear the difference between a 'one' and a 'zero'. Might even be quicker in the end 😉
And SHUT UP about Unicode ! La lala lalala (fingers in ears)
May 24, 2010 at 2:38 am
dcraday (5/21/2010)
Visual Basic .Net doesn't worry about case sensitivity and if you are using the Visual Studio IDE, it corrects the casing as you type.
This seems the best idea: the entered code becomes tidy but typing 'wrong' case is corrected, unlike pascal which doesn't care that eg FuNcTionNAme() rather than the intended FunctionName() is untidy.
May 24, 2010 at 6:55 am
Miles Neale (5/21/2010)
However the yelling of code and solutions should be questioned. As one who has been involved with security for some time it has been noted that this practice is at best questionable when dealing with certain aspects of the business. And when it is done with any code or solution it becomes a practice is happens in cases where it should not.I agree that things should be easier. They are now far easier. But to make them so simple and open that they lack security and at least a little trickery to keep the vermin out needs some rethinking.
Still the basic idea is fine. Just be careful.
I'd question your point. Good security does NOT rely on hidden knowledge for the most part. The problem is knowledge is never hidden for long, and relying on it to be is the quickest way to a security breach.
Code being yelled across a room might indeed be a security risk--but only because the code is hastily conceived and entered by someone who doesn't understand it. *That* is the risk, not revealing the code itself.
May 24, 2010 at 7:00 am
djackson 22568 (5/21/2010)
I haven't coded in VB for a few years (VBSciprt only currently) but what if I want a variable named MyNewVariable and another one named MYNewVariable? Yes, that would most likely be a poor design - but what would the result be?
If both variables were in the same scope, they would be the same variable. If they were different scopes (say local to two different subs or functions) they would be different variables.
Hey, I love Python (which *is* case-sensitive), but there are case handling conventions for a *reason*. 🙂 Personally, I think case sensitivity is a sop to the computer, not the human.
May 24, 2010 at 7:03 am
djackson 22568 (5/21/2010)
C is an abomination? Have you seen java?
Where do you think they got Java's syntax from? 🙂
Any language with C-based syntax (including TADS) is from the dark side. (chuckle) But then I look at Lisp and suddenly C seems downright user-friendly...
May 24, 2010 at 7:28 am
Personally, I think case sensitivity is a sop to the computer, not the human.
Well, specifically systems programmers and compiler writers. Since ASCII (BCD/EBCDIC is another kettle of fish) is cased, they would have to write routines to un-case the encoding wherever. It's so much easier to let it be.
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