Developer Questions

Miscellaneous Topics
#21

How old were you when you starting programming ?
12 (year 1999)

What was you first programming language ?
Java

What is you favorite programming language ?
ECMAScript (JavaScript, JScript, ActionScript …)

Why ?

  • Mutable objects
  • Prototypical inheritance model
  • First-class functions
  • Closures, anonymous functions
  • Loose typing

Java is high on my favorite list but I find JavaScript to be more concise, expressive, and great balance of OOP and functional programming.

Many people avoid JavaScript because of the terrible DOM API, but that isn’t really part of the language. Try writing a game using HTML5 Canvas API instead… good fun, that.

#22

happy to see we are a cupple to have a similar experience :slight_smile: BASIC / PASCAL / ASM rocks !

How old were you when you starting programming ?
cant really remember ( probably about 8 (1986) , I also wrote my first game at this period on the CPC464, a prohibition clone (a shot game as you can find nowadays everywhere online in flash), unfortunatly the tape where it was saved is probalby cleared or breaked now :slight_smile: … but I managed to keep alive a cupple of more recent (on 8086) but pretty old works retrieved from a crashed hard drive, it also include : my first 3D engine ! fully in ASM (1992/1994) wich was improved and ported to Java (3DzzD), a 3 screens prince of persia clone where I replaced the hero by the hero of another game Targan (game remake was one of my favourite hobbies back in 90’ years) and a cupple of more ASM & PASCAL demo you can download from http://demo.dzzd.net/PROG.ZIP , this is all I was able to save :’(, some prog (most ASM) using processor in protected mode requiere to run in a DOS Emulator as the excellent DosBox, a lot should works on XP and … seems that very few run on Vista…

What was you first programming language ?
BASIC on a green monochrome cpc 464, program was saved on audio tape, also as mentionned above lot of revue was giving 4/5 source code page that you had to type yourself, really nice time

What is you favorite programming language ?
dont really knwow they are differents.
not in any order I love those : PHP / Java / ASM / JavaScript / C

#23

[quote] I did not have to worry about running out of line numbers between sets because I didn’t leave room
[/quote]
:slight_smile: I start with 10/20/30 then after falling a lot of time in a “no free line problem” I finally switch to 100/200/300 as every one I guess

#24

[quote=“Sueamanu,post:1,topic:34473”]
5

[quote=“Sueamanu,post:1,topic:34473”]
MS-DOS shell and Basic on TO7 and MO6

[quote=“Sueamanu,post:1,topic:34473”]
Java because:

  • it is free of charge (when using only at least J2SE) and free open source (under GPL license)
  • it is (almost?) cross-platform (“Write Once, Run Anywhere”)
  • it is probably one of the fastest high-level languages able to compete with C/C++
  • you don’t risk prosecutions when using it unlike Mono
  • it allows to handle the complexity in a more simple way than C/C++/C# as you rarely have to deallocate the objects by yourself
  • good IDEs are available to use it (mainly Netbeans and Eclipse on my view)
  • it already contains an embedded profiler (jvisualvm)
  • Java Webstart is a bit buggy but quite useful to deploy cross-platform applications, it goes further than Click Once (.NET)
  • OpenGL in Java (JOGL, LWJGL) is noticeably faster than in C# (Tao Framework)
  • its syntax is close to the C but more simple unlike OCaml, Esterel…
  • it is globally backward compatible, you can still launch Java programs written in 1997
  • no multiple inheritance
  • lol there are too much things to say (thank you Sun Microsystems, what would I do without Java?)
#25

I guess I was about 8 or 9 when programmed my first line of code.
It was on a ZX-81 in BASIC, and quite soon I went to ASM. Boy that was something else. A ZX-81 can’t actually save binaries, only basic programs. So to program in assembly, you had to poke your code into REM statements. That was something seriously fiddly :slight_smile:
In ‘the old days’ I probably did most programming on an MSX2, where I mostly coded in ASM and sometimes mixed BASIC-ASM. During mid-nineties I didn’t program at all.

Right now I mostly develop in java, but also code in C++ in the odd occasion. I quite dislike C++ though, for the same reasons as Markus_Persson.
Despite all its flaws, I still think java feels the cleanest and most consistent and at the same time keeps ok performance. One thing that also kept me with java is the fantastic IDEs and tools. Oh and it pays the bills quite handsomely :slight_smile:

I gave C# a serious chance but I still think it’s a confused version of java and I quite dislike the overrated VS.net.

#26

Sounds like I fit the same pattern as lots of people here :slight_smile:

I was about 5, copying programs from the BBC Micro magazine in BASIC on my Dads BBC B+. I remember getting a book of programs for children one Christmas to type in. It had mistakes, I’m sure they were intentional :).

Endolf

#27

I used 10/20/30, I can’t remember it now (was too long ago), but there was a command on the BBC that would go through and renumber all your lines of code if you were running low. It didn’t update your GOTOs though. Which was always fun :slight_smile:

Endolf

#28

though I never got into assembler, apple ][ basic had some interesting things one had to figure out, for example if you wanted to make a sprite, you first plotted it on grid paper, then traced it with 4-digit binary commands, then converted those into hexpairs. That took some time to work out as a lickle kid.
lol this is starting to sound like an old-age home… ‘In my day, we had to eat the used punch-cards and wind magnetic tapes by hand. Floppy disks? LUXURY!’