"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <skeet@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1e0dcbd04a043acb98cb4d@msnews.microsoft.c om...[color=blue]
> Henry Padilla <padillah@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>> > suggested to me that you preferred the C/C++ way of doing things, and
>> > hadn't understood the problem with it.[/color]
>>
>> Having used C/C++ for the number of years that I have, I've become
>> desensetised to the "problem" with it. In fact I don't view it as a
>> problem, like I said, it's just the way the language is. Learn the
>> language.[/color]
>
> And choose between having to be perfect with respect to typos or use a
> less readable comparison form? Sorry, but that choice still seems to be
> a problem to me. However, whether it's actually a problem or not is
> irrelevant to the main point of me quoting your post - which was to
> show why I thought your post really *was* criticising C# for its
> choice. I hope you can at least see where I was coming from in that
> respect.[/color]
I'm not arguing the merits of one language over another. I'm not trying to
say one is better/worse/indifferent than the other. Please stop turning
this into an argument. I was mearly expressing my point of view - a
language is it's syntax, to accept the language is to accept the syntax.
I'm not a big fan of whining, to me a situation is not about blame or
excuse, it's about solving the problem at hand. If I have that much of a
problem with C# doing this differently than some other language I know, I
should stop using C#. Don't blame the language for it's syntax, use the
language or don't but complaining about it doesn't solve anything. That's
my attitude towards programming and that's what I was trying to convey
(albeit much less verbose) when I remarked "Learn the language". I did not
mean to suggest you learn "why C/C++ is better than C#", because I don't
believe it is. I believe it is a useful language and I need help learning
the syntax.
Below you make the analogy of programming languages to spoken languages, and
I think that's a very useful analogy. Would you say Russsian's lack of
participles means it's not a "good" language? Or that, in German, you must
always put the heling verb at the end of a sentance. Does that make it
worthless? Or the fact that English has more irregular verbs than any other
language. Is it not worth learning?
It depends on what you are trying to do, doesn't it? Same thing in
programming. Lisp is almost completely useless - except in AI and then you
can't find a better language! FORTRAN is large and cumbersome - except when
ripping through a formula and then it's almost got a beauty to it.
[color=blue]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>> > I've just reread both Larry's post and your reply to it - I still think
>> > yours is the ruder one. I suggest you reread both and see if you
>> > disagree. You are much more personally aggressive in yours.[/color]
>>
>> This I will grant you. However I WAS the one being attacked and
>> therefore
>> had every right to respond severely.[/color]
>
> Well, you were being "attacked" fairly light-heartedly in my reading of
> it, and overreacted by a large margin.[/color]
OK. But this is an ad hominen argument. How I reacted to Larry has nothing
to do with the validity of my question. Larry and I have put this to rest,
please let us do the same.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > I'm sorry you feel that way. I always find that if you try to
>> > understand why a language designer made a decision in one particular
>> > situation, that makes it easier to understand the general emphasis of
>> > the language, and helps you to pick up the rest of the points of the
>> > language. For instance, understanding that C# doesn't want you to make
>> > the kind of mistakes which are often made in C/C++ might help you to
>> > guess (and then check) that when you try to fall through from one bit
>> > of code in a switch statement to the next switch case and the compiler
>> > stops you from doing it, that's a deliberate choice and not just a typo
>> > on your part. It might help you to guess that instance and class
>> > variables which have not been explicitly initialised have a specified
>> > default value rather than just getting potentially random garbage. It
>> > might help you to understand why you can't use uninitialised local
>> > variables. It's a bit like using foreign culture to help you pick up a
>> > foreign language - the more you think in the language, the easier it is
>> > to learn (whether a computer language or a natural language).[/color]
>>
>> Any given situation can be seen as a plus or minus under the right
>> circumstances. What you may see as keeping you from making mistakes I
>> may
>> see as keeping me from doing something usefull to me.
>>
>> I apreciate your outlook, but I can't share it. Ian't get that invested
>> in
>> a language, they change too often.[/color]
>
> It really doesn't take that much investment, and I believe it makes it
> significantly quicker to learn the language as a whole. It's like
> saying it's not worth learning the patterns of how to conjugate verbs,
> preferring to learn how to conjugate each one individually. Learning
> the patterns is a larger "up front" investment, but it pays huge
> dividends.[/color]
Again, I apreciate your outlook. That is a fine way of lookng at things, as
a matter of fact that allows me to reuse your own analogy. My father was
from Puerto Rico and he spoke Spanish. I took Spanish in high school for
four years and do you know where I learned most of my Spanish? Talking to
my dad. SEEING how the language worked. FEELING how the structures fit
together and which verb gets put into the past tense at which point in time.
Books do help a great deal but you are never going to fool anyone into
thinking you know Spanish from a book - you must speak it and see how it
FEELS on your tongue.
That's my same take on programming languages. There are nuances and tricks
that you just don't find in any book. Using the language, seeing how it
feels when up against certain problems - that's how I get a language burned
into my head. You may not, that's your personal learning curve.
It's The Universal Law: Some do, some don't.
[color=blue]
>
> I don't think he "admitted" that. Indeed, he *did* help you - his last
> sentence (out of only 7 - it wasn't exactly a post you had to pick
> apart for ages to find the answer) gave the answer perfectly easily. In
> my view the first two sentences are also helpful - they should have got
> you to ask the question of yourself in a deeper way than your "Well,
> K&R decided to do it that way, so every language should follow what
> they did" response.[/color]
....
[color=blue]
> Well, I still don't think he was being that rude to you, personally. If
> you're going to react that way when people are only that "rude" to you,
> you're likely to come apart at the seams if you hang around newsgroups
> for a while. People can be an awful lot ruder than that.[/color]
Well, I don't know what to tell you. Larry himself, admitted that he had
been particularly snide (due to the day he had had) and backed off in his
very next post. I, as well, apologized for not seeing the humor for what it
was, this being the first time I've come in contact with Larry.
If this is an issue you cannot get beyond then I am truly at a loss for how
to help. I've apologized to as many people as I can, Larry, yourself, Bruce
Wood... I don't know what you need to bring this to closure but you are
going to have to find it in someone else.
I've done as much as I can.
Tom P.
