What's new after 20 years?
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Hunter Cottage wrote:
Is PHP a viable language though, meaning is it actually used for real stuff
It seems like a server-side scripting language from what I've seen of it (not much). And that's not a compliment. Basically, it has a low learning curve, but it doesn't seem designed for more complex software. I hear it's the most common language used for web work, but then most websites are complete garbage, so that makes sense. Some notable exception to the rule that PHP is used for simple stuff are MediaWiki, which is the software that runs Wikipedia, and WordPress, which is used to run pretty much every blog out there. If you want to write a plugin for either of those, you'll want to learn PHP. Still, I've seen how some of those plugins work, and they're not exactly shining examples of software excellence (they seem like hacks on top of hacks).
I've done some quick browsing of the different languages you suggested, and it seems like Ruby on Rails is trying to do what PHP can't and then some. Seems very interesting indeed!! Thanks again for you input!
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
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Sorry! I have a brother Dave... My name is Brian Kuehn and I live in Stockholm Sweden.
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Sorry! I have a brother Dave... My name is Brian Kuehn and I live in Stockholm Sweden.
Wizardzz was making a subtle allusion to another member here, "Dalek Dave", who is also an accountant. :)
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
Hunter Cottage wrote:
like me should update my skills with...
These days you really need to decide an area to focus on first. You might mess around in Java or C# but it is probably impossible to explore all facets of those languages. So finding a direction early one would help.
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
It's like surfing...Lots of product waves that are supposed to be the ultimate, become only the next big thing, then are forgotten (except for code maintenance). Silverlight is a good example. It was supposed to be "the next big thing" and to "conquer the web" and "everyone should learn it". Now it's abandoned by Microsoft and effectively dead for new development. Oh, wait...Now there's Metro! "Catch the wave, man! It's so cool! It's the ultimate!" Next year it will be something else that will save the world, produce world peace, and be the Silver Bullet. This same technology wave phenomena occurs in Java and to a lesser extent in other environments and tools. The newcomer will keep getting hit by the waves until he/she: 1. Picks one and rides it in to the beach. 2. Gives up. 3. Learns to surf. So pick a wave and learn to surf it and perhaps ride it in to the beach or keep catching new ones until you're tired of new waves! - Grant
C. Grant Anderson
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Wizardzz was making a subtle allusion to another member here, "Dalek Dave", who is also an accountant. :)
Its all good!! Walked right into that one...
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Hunter Cottage wrote:
like me should update my skills with...
These days you really need to decide an area to focus on first. You might mess around in Java or C# but it is probably impossible to explore all facets of those languages. So finding a direction early one would help.
Good thought! Will do! Thanks for your input!!
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It's like surfing...Lots of product waves that are supposed to be the ultimate, become only the next big thing, then are forgotten (except for code maintenance). Silverlight is a good example. It was supposed to be "the next big thing" and to "conquer the web" and "everyone should learn it". Now it's abandoned by Microsoft and effectively dead for new development. Oh, wait...Now there's Metro! "Catch the wave, man! It's so cool! It's the ultimate!" Next year it will be something else that will save the world, produce world peace, and be the Silver Bullet. This same technology wave phenomena occurs in Java and to a lesser extent in other environments and tools. The newcomer will keep getting hit by the waves until he/she: 1. Picks one and rides it in to the beach. 2. Gives up. 3. Learns to surf. So pick a wave and learn to surf it and perhaps ride it in to the beach or keep catching new ones until you're tired of new waves! - Grant
C. Grant Anderson
Great metaphor!!:thumbsup: Wise words, kudos to you!! Number 1 sounds like a good thing to do... I'm an avid climber, so don't have time for number 3!
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
i remember couple years back, i've asked same question - "What's new?", "What's new since dot com went bust and .NET was launched?". i was bored for awhile and during this time couple mundane new development appears on face of this planet (Business Intelligence/OLAP/Data Mining/Cloud/WPF/WCF/Silverlight...etc nothing more than new ways of doing same things, perhaps nothing more than marginal improvement in code maintainability or just outright useless jargon, not very impressive in short) But until recently, just google on dones... i can see explosion of real practical applications in both commercial and military Couple things got me excited * Forget AI (we never have too much success in the field), focus on arms/legs/sensors and robotics - * .NET code to run on microprocessors * re-discovery of importance of mechanical devices/sensors - and integration with computers (wired/wirelessly)
dev
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
You may want to consider these indexes to come back into fashion: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html[^] or http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/[^]. Don't read that Objective-C is trendy, read that iOS is. You may also want to differentiate... :)
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Hunter Cottage wrote:
. I studied CS in the early 90's
You're already up to date, man:
C Sharp is the latest star in the programmers world. :rolleyes:Veni, vidi, vici.
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i remember couple years back, i've asked same question - "What's new?", "What's new since dot com went bust and .NET was launched?". i was bored for awhile and during this time couple mundane new development appears on face of this planet (Business Intelligence/OLAP/Data Mining/Cloud/WPF/WCF/Silverlight...etc nothing more than new ways of doing same things, perhaps nothing more than marginal improvement in code maintainability or just outright useless jargon, not very impressive in short) But until recently, just google on dones... i can see explosion of real practical applications in both commercial and military Couple things got me excited * Forget AI (we never have too much success in the field), focus on arms/legs/sensors and robotics - * .NET code to run on microprocessors * re-discovery of importance of mechanical devices/sensors - and integration with computers (wired/wirelessly)
dev
Wow! Never thought of this!! Fun stuff!! Also never thought that .NET could be used with microprocessors... beats coding assembler (which I've done a bunch) I've got a close friend that works at a microprocessor manufacturer and we have all kinds of interesting talks, all the time about this very subject, but more on R/C aircraft. I could use a snake-like drone now to wipe out some rats that are in the attic!!!
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You may want to consider these indexes to come back into fashion: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html[^] or http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/[^]. Don't read that Objective-C is trendy, read that iOS is. You may also want to differentiate... :)
GREAT indexes!! I wonder how valid they are for Europe? Never thought my old C and Pascal would still be hanging in there!! That ADA is still used, I was glad to never have touched the stuff... Thanks for your input!! This was extremely useful!!:thumbsup:
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
C++ is still the bright star but the sky is full of stars. Programming is expensive, so you can do java stuff if you don't want to pay for well educated programmers. You can make a compromise with c#, which is better than java and quite innovative compared to other languages. But C++ is catching up, the current version contains a lot of interesting stuff, including the all good stuff C Sharp never had. Interpreting languages are quite common. Python or Ruby. PHP is used for a lot of small and/or buggy projects, because it's as easy to have success with one line of code as it is to get a two bug with two lines of code. There is some attention at functional programming like Haskell or Scala. Forget about anything you heard about basic, noone want's basic anymore. I would say, C++ is still top of the range, but C#/Java are more common for business stuff, like handling data bases stuff etc. The syntax of Java/C# is cleaner, at least at the windows environment, where C++ sometimes looks quite ugly. For portable software I do not see any real advantages of these languages. If you like to update your skills, teach yourself in C++11. If you're good with C++, everything else is just triviality - the rest are just programming tools with a specialization in the one or other matter. ;-) I am a c++ developer (officially I am C#-Developer, but I didn't write a c# line since two years or so), I was a java developer before. Currently I teach myself Scala just to know it and to keep track of this topic. For private projects I use C++ and a self developed programming language which currently just generates c++ codes.
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C++ is still the bright star but the sky is full of stars. Programming is expensive, so you can do java stuff if you don't want to pay for well educated programmers. You can make a compromise with c#, which is better than java and quite innovative compared to other languages. But C++ is catching up, the current version contains a lot of interesting stuff, including the all good stuff C Sharp never had. Interpreting languages are quite common. Python or Ruby. PHP is used for a lot of small and/or buggy projects, because it's as easy to have success with one line of code as it is to get a two bug with two lines of code. There is some attention at functional programming like Haskell or Scala. Forget about anything you heard about basic, noone want's basic anymore. I would say, C++ is still top of the range, but C#/Java are more common for business stuff, like handling data bases stuff etc. The syntax of Java/C# is cleaner, at least at the windows environment, where C++ sometimes looks quite ugly. For portable software I do not see any real advantages of these languages. If you like to update your skills, teach yourself in C++11. If you're good with C++, everything else is just triviality - the rest are just programming tools with a specialization in the one or other matter. ;-) I am a c++ developer (officially I am C#-Developer, but I didn't write a c# line since two years or so), I was a java developer before. Currently I teach myself Scala just to know it and to keep track of this topic. For private projects I use C++ and a self developed programming language which currently just generates c++ codes.
I'd just like to add that C is quite popular too. There is still a great need for low-level code, especially in the embedded hardware world. I graduated in 2003, got a job working most of that time as a C# developer. About a year and a half ago I transitioned to embedded systems and, as best I can tell, the ONLY language option you have is C if you are going to be working with the low-level hardware. If you are interested in apps that run on smaller form-factor devices (i.e. smartphones and tables,) stick with Java for Android and for iOS devices, you should learn Objective-C.
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I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
-
I've been away from the business about 20 years now. I studied CS in the early 90's when C++ was the upcoming star, to find out that it is old hat now-a-days. I've been side-tracked by accounting and it would be interesting to find out your take as to what an Old Fart like me should update my skills with...
If you have nothing constructive to say, be silent!
My Computer Science degree is from 1988. There is really not much new. If you can read & write c and Pascal you are way ahead of the current crowd. The trend has drifted to bloated code and disregard for machine performance. A library or API call is preferred to self contained code. Getting a "tool chain" in place the first time is more difficult than actually writing code. A lot of what is called programming is actually scripting. Since Windows does not support legacy drivers each new release makes any special IO devices unuseable in about 4 years. Recently I have noted: The latest C++ specs were mostly ignored. Apparently those who actually write code are not interested in new ways to do the same old things. I got tired of Python and put it away for a while when I got to the matter of string handling. To me, the old way was concise and complete. The real attraction is that the package (Pyton.org) is free, can be run as an interpreter or compiled and is extensively cross platform. I have not got to JAVA yet but its popularity and flexibility makes it a must do. As soon as any programming package becomes popular there seems to be a movement to fragment away from any standards. Kind of a "Tower of Babel" event. C/C++ is available as open source and free. It works well and would probably be a good starting point for you. The whole Open Source movement is worth joining. Most software seems to become available well ahead of any written documents. Nearly anything you want to learn has a good YouTube Tutorial as well as free online tutorials. No individual can do everything, there is just too much. That has not changed.
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Hunter Cottage wrote:
Is PHP a viable language though, meaning is it actually used for real stuff
It seems like a server-side scripting language from what I've seen of it (not much). And that's not a compliment. Basically, it has a low learning curve, but it doesn't seem designed for more complex software. I hear it's the most common language used for web work, but then most websites are complete garbage, so that makes sense. Some notable exception to the rule that PHP is used for simple stuff are MediaWiki, which is the software that runs Wikipedia, and WordPress, which is used to run pretty much every blog out there. If you want to write a plugin for either of those, you'll want to learn PHP. Still, I've seen how some of those plugins work, and they're not exactly shining examples of software excellence (they seem like hacks on top of hacks).
Php is a dynamic language for sure. And you can pick it up quickly and get some work done, even if you don't have any idea about "software development." Php gets beat up a lot because you can get some work done using just the core of the language. You can also put run it right in your html. Of course, I could use C# inline in an ASP.Net page in the same way if I wanted (you can use ASP.net just like classic ASP, if you really want to). I think it's just less common to see "hacks on top of hacks" code in languages that aren't free because hobbyist will use the free stuff instead. To write a serious php aplication, you would use a framework--maybe Zend or Symphony. Or you could also use one of the many microframeworks--laravel and limonade are among my favorites. Or you could start with an extensible platform like Wordpress, Drupal, OsCommerce, Moodle, etc. Most of the php projects I have worked on are integration projects...like merging functionality from moodle into a drupal site, or merging a wordpress blog into an OsCommerce store, or something like that. Evaluating Php by reading wordpress plugins writtne by hobbyist is a lot like evaluating .Net by reading consile apps written by students, in my opinion. Look into the frameworks that are available and the code that is in the platforms like wordpress to see how professional programmers use php.