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Worst programming language?

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  • R Rui A Rebelo

    What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

    1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
    2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
    3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
    4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
    5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
    6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
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    Miszou
    wrote on last edited by
    #6

    Foxpro. Not just the language but the entire IDE. X|


    The StartPage Randomizer

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    • R Rui A Rebelo

      What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

      1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
      2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
      3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
      4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
      5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
      6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
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      El Corazon
      wrote on last edited by
      #7

      Rui A. Rebelo wrote: Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Not quite true.... However, to write an entire program in assembly to save 5-10% is really not worth it. But you can easily get half your savings by hand-optimizing the most called modules. But then there is the problem of re-use, assembly is extremely difficult to maintain, and the presence of can kill ports, bugs in them can waste valuable man hours. I can optimize code better than the Intel, Borland or Microsoft compilers, haven't tried any others; but more importantly, I cannot find long term value in doing so anymore. When we were doing DOS programs, the efficiency of assembly far outweighed the compilers of that time. Now, the compilers have closed the gap, and the complexity of systems makes assembly undesireable. But it is still faster, just not worth the time. Rui A. Rebelo wrote: Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Having done both, I agree. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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      • M Michael Dunn

        I despise Pascal. My first two quarters of Baby Programmer Classes in college were taught in Pascal. Ugh, trying to do complex data types in that language, along with features like "no return statement" and "no short-circuiting in if clauses" made me want to forcibly remove my hair and go back to C= BASIC. Then I got exposed to Ada... X| It's Pascal, only wordier! --Mike-- Visual C++ MVP :cool: LINKS~! Ericahist | 1ClickPicGrabber | CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | C++ Forum FAQ

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        El Corazon
        wrote on last edited by
        #8

        Michael Dunn wrote: Then I got exposed to Ada... It's Pascal, only wordier! That is because Ada is Pascal done to government specifications.... :laugh: _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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        • E El Corazon

          Rui A. Rebelo wrote: Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Not quite true.... However, to write an entire program in assembly to save 5-10% is really not worth it. But you can easily get half your savings by hand-optimizing the most called modules. But then there is the problem of re-use, assembly is extremely difficult to maintain, and the presence of can kill ports, bugs in them can waste valuable man hours. I can optimize code better than the Intel, Borland or Microsoft compilers, haven't tried any others; but more importantly, I cannot find long term value in doing so anymore. When we were doing DOS programs, the efficiency of assembly far outweighed the compilers of that time. Now, the compilers have closed the gap, and the complexity of systems makes assembly undesireable. But it is still faster, just not worth the time. Rui A. Rebelo wrote: Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Having done both, I agree. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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          DavidNohejl
          wrote on last edited by
          #9

          If I am not mistaken then Rollercoster Tycoon I was mady in assembly. Sounds like lot of work... :~ David

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          • R Rui A Rebelo

            What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

            1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
            2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
            3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
            4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
            5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
            6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
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            Steve Mayfield
            wrote on last edited by
            #10

            Forth was rather strange too.... and of course the winner is...... VB :-D Steve

            N 1 Reply Last reply
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            • R Rui A Rebelo

              What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

              1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
              2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
              3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
              4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
              5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
              6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
              R Offline
              R Offline
              Rick York
              wrote on last edited by
              #11

              I agree - Forth is horrible. I consider it to be a write-only language. One very weird one is APL - cryptic at best. Then there is managed C++. What an abomination. X|

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              • R Rui A Rebelo

                What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

                1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
                2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
                3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
                4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
                5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
                6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
                R Offline
                R Offline
                Roger Wright
                wrote on last edited by
                #12

                COBOL was horrid, Pascal the best I've used - though hpl came very close to "best" in its day. It was not popular with programmers because it used lower case letters, and all previous languages used caps exclusively. APL, Lisp, C++ are all terrible languages, completely indecipherable by anyone but an expert. Prolog had its own problems, but I suspect that most of them are really mine, being unable to think in predicate logic terms. Of the BASICs, GDBASIC was the worst. It was written internally at General Dynamics, and all library routines were numbered, not named. To program an oscilliscope we had to do something like CALL 1022(5,20,1024). Without the most current xeroxed copy of the 300-page+ manual it was hopeless - there was no change control used on the systems programming group and they changed them whenever they felt like it without telling anyone. FORTRAN was fun, logical, and powerful. Ada just plain sucked. ALGOL taught APL how to be weird. I was nominally in charge of the development of the latest version of ATLAS - the US DoD answer to GDBASIC - but I was happy to let someone else take responsibility and the design lead on that baby. There has never been a less appropriate way to program a computer. There have been so many bad languages - it's really hard to choose a "worst." C# is at least decently readable, even though it takes 15 years to learn the libraries. I think I'm going to like it.:-D As far as assembly being boring is concerned - if you've ever had to program a missile guidance control test program with only 512 bytes of memory available to store and execute your program, boring would not be the word you'd choose for the experience. It is sometimes absolutely necessary to use assembly, and when it is, it is always an intellectual challenge of the first order.;P "...putting all your eggs in one basket along with your bowling ball and gym clothes only gets you scrambled eggs and an extra laundry day... " - Jeffry J. Brickley

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                • R Rick York

                  I agree - Forth is horrible. I consider it to be a write-only language. One very weird one is APL - cryptic at best. Then there is managed C++. What an abomination. X|

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                  T Offline
                  Tim Smith
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #13

                  LOL!!!! I LOVED FORTH. But it is a write-only language. Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.

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                  • R Rui A Rebelo

                    What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

                    1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
                    2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
                    3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
                    4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
                    5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
                    6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
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                    S Offline
                    Shog9 0
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #14

                    Of the ones i've had to use, VB is the worst. None of the "seat-of-your-pants" fun of regular BASIC (VBScript gets this right at least), with all the baggage that years of trying to stay backwards compatible brings. For every other language i've used, no matter how bizarre, there was a state of mind you could put yourself in where it all made sense, and each solution was clear. Programming in VB is like trying to think like a schizophrenic person, while trying to stay sane and sober. Next on the list would be C++.

                    You must be careful in the forest Broken glass and rusty nails If you're to bring back something for us I have bullets for sale...

                    A 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • R Rui A Rebelo

                      What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

                      1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
                      2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
                      3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
                      4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
                      5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
                      6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
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                      zichun
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #15

                      SPL[^]- Shakespeare Programming Language. Fun, interesting, and totally pointless.

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • D DavidNohejl

                        If I am not mistaken then Rollercoster Tycoon I was mady in assembly. Sounds like lot of work... :~ David

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                        E Offline
                        El Corazon
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #16

                        dnh wrote: If I am not mistaken then Rollercoster Tycoon I was mady in assembly. Sounds like lot of work... Many early games were, heck even my early work on the missile range was all assembly. It was the only way to squeeze the speed out of those machines. I did early VB Dos like user interfaces, I wrote based open source code and customized for speed. Simulated multi-tasking, UI, RS-232 asynchronous communication, and especially synchronous serial communication, you needed that extra umph from assembly. We had one guy who wrote almost entirely in assembly, I was hired because of my multi-language skills (well, and they could get me incredibly cheap and still pay me more than I was being paid), especially the ability to write in assembly. I talked them into multi-language production of products, C where C was best, Ada where Ada was required (not sure there was a best there), Assembly on specific functions that were called a lot. All my UI stuff before Windows was Assembly, I expect a lot of the first Windows code was assembly too. That was just the proper way then. Now machines are so much faster they can do so much more, that the software complexity has gotten to the point where assembly should be rare. And yet, a glance at the first shading languages for graphics systems on the last few years; we were back at assembly again. Now they are finally getting us quality high level languages again with both Cg and HLSL for OpenGL 2.0. Most things start at assembly level on computers, it just shouldn't stay there. :) _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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                        • R Rui A Rebelo

                          What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

                          1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
                          2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
                          3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
                          4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
                          5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
                          6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
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                          John M Drescher
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #17

                          LISP. John

                          R 1 Reply Last reply
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                          • M Michael Dunn

                            I despise Pascal. My first two quarters of Baby Programmer Classes in college were taught in Pascal. Ugh, trying to do complex data types in that language, along with features like "no return statement" and "no short-circuiting in if clauses" made me want to forcibly remove my hair and go back to C= BASIC. Then I got exposed to Ada... X| It's Pascal, only wordier! --Mike-- Visual C++ MVP :cool: LINKS~! Ericahist | 1ClickPicGrabber | CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | C++ Forum FAQ

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                            Jim Crafton
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #18

                            I suppose you'll get a lot of this, but I LOVE Pascal, or more specifically Borland's ObjectPascal. I have found it much cleaner to write than C/C++ which seems to encourage hacky and hard to read code, in my experience. Maybe part of it is the lack of macros whcih can cause all sorts of crazy weirdness in C/C++. ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!

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                            • R Rui A Rebelo

                              What is the most annoying programming language you had to use? I have a long list of bad experiences, but refined to it's worst here it is (worst in first).

                              1. APL - imagine Lisp writen with greek letters, from right to left, with your keyboard remaped and the "operator operand1 operand2" syntax.
                              2. Cobol - boring and dull, like filling income tax forms.
                              3. Prolog - it only solves one kind of problem, which only university teachers care about.
                              4. Javascript - slow, inconsistent, buggy and (worst of all) sometimes is the only choice you have.
                              5. Fortran - another over specialized language.
                              6. Assembly (for Motorolla, Intel 80386 & Pentium, MIPS, etc.). Some say you can write optimized code in Assembly. Nonsense. Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso
                              J Offline
                              J Offline
                              Jim Crafton
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #19

                              Worst 1. Forte's TOOL language/environment/POS IDE. Absolutely the most annoying piece of crap I've had to use. We used to call it Forte's Object Oriented Language (FOOL). 2. VB - the language is annoying as hell, feels like it was just randomly thrown together, and the editor makes me just want to scream and start bitch slapping people after using it for 5 minutes. 3. Perl. What is it about Perl that makes it seem to cool and logical when you read the examples in the book, but when you read real world code you just want to puke at the sheer unreadability of it all. 4. LISP - cool to read about, full of interesting ideas. Can't imagine actually programming anything more complex than Hello World in it. I appreciate the power, but I just have to shake my head at the syntax. Favorites (so far) 1. Hands down, IMHO, Borland's ObjectPascal. Note that I specifically mention ObejctPascal, not plain-jane Pascal. My understanding is that Borland added a number of very cool features to ObjectPascal that were not present in original Pascal. I could look at a problem, or imagine something I wanted to build, and just "think" the full pascal solution in my head. Can't really do that with C/C++, it's just too terse. 2. Objective C - kind of weird to get used to (the whole use of "[]" to indicate message passing is a bit strange), but once you do it's fun to write in. Maybe that's more due to the framework it's typically used with than the language. 3. Python. Dunno why I like it, but it's fun to use. Overrated 1. Java. Blah, Blah, Blah, whatever. It's a tool. 'nuff said. Not horrible, but not that inspiring either. 2. C#. Slight less annoying than Java. But still overrated IMHO. Honorourable Mention 1. C++. It's OK. It's annoying. It walks a fine balance between the two. But it doesn't exactly inspire either enthusiasm or loathing. It's mentally stimulating but in weird, querky, and frequently useless ways. It's kind of like the challenge of being able to wrap both feet behind your head. It's a challenge, it takes patience and discipline to stretch and train to be able to do so, but once you've put both feet behind your head you're left thinking: "Well what's next and why did want to do this in the first place?" ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned

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                              • J Jim Crafton

                                Worst 1. Forte's TOOL language/environment/POS IDE. Absolutely the most annoying piece of crap I've had to use. We used to call it Forte's Object Oriented Language (FOOL). 2. VB - the language is annoying as hell, feels like it was just randomly thrown together, and the editor makes me just want to scream and start bitch slapping people after using it for 5 minutes. 3. Perl. What is it about Perl that makes it seem to cool and logical when you read the examples in the book, but when you read real world code you just want to puke at the sheer unreadability of it all. 4. LISP - cool to read about, full of interesting ideas. Can't imagine actually programming anything more complex than Hello World in it. I appreciate the power, but I just have to shake my head at the syntax. Favorites (so far) 1. Hands down, IMHO, Borland's ObjectPascal. Note that I specifically mention ObejctPascal, not plain-jane Pascal. My understanding is that Borland added a number of very cool features to ObjectPascal that were not present in original Pascal. I could look at a problem, or imagine something I wanted to build, and just "think" the full pascal solution in my head. Can't really do that with C/C++, it's just too terse. 2. Objective C - kind of weird to get used to (the whole use of "[]" to indicate message passing is a bit strange), but once you do it's fun to write in. Maybe that's more due to the framework it's typically used with than the language. 3. Python. Dunno why I like it, but it's fun to use. Overrated 1. Java. Blah, Blah, Blah, whatever. It's a tool. 'nuff said. Not horrible, but not that inspiring either. 2. C#. Slight less annoying than Java. But still overrated IMHO. Honorourable Mention 1. C++. It's OK. It's annoying. It walks a fine balance between the two. But it doesn't exactly inspire either enthusiasm or loathing. It's mentally stimulating but in weird, querky, and frequently useless ways. It's kind of like the challenge of being able to wrap both feet behind your head. It's a challenge, it takes patience and discipline to stretch and train to be able to do so, but once you've put both feet behind your head you're left thinking: "Well what's next and why did want to do this in the first place?" ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned

                                S Offline
                                S Offline
                                Shog9 0
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #20

                                Jim Crafton wrote: 2. Objective C Yeah, that was fun. Used to wish for a NeXTbox so i could actually use a decent framework with it... now i guess i should get a Mac. Jim Crafton wrote: 1. C++. It's OK. It's annoying. It walks a fine balance between the two. That's about how i feel. I think everyone should have to work on a collaborative C++ project at least once, just so they appreciate not having to do so afterwards. I'd suggest collaborative VB development instead, but that would be just cruel.

                                You must be careful in the forest Broken glass and rusty nails If you're to bring back something for us I have bullets for sale...

                                1 Reply Last reply
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                                • E El Corazon

                                  dnh wrote: If I am not mistaken then Rollercoster Tycoon I was mady in assembly. Sounds like lot of work... Many early games were, heck even my early work on the missile range was all assembly. It was the only way to squeeze the speed out of those machines. I did early VB Dos like user interfaces, I wrote based open source code and customized for speed. Simulated multi-tasking, UI, RS-232 asynchronous communication, and especially synchronous serial communication, you needed that extra umph from assembly. We had one guy who wrote almost entirely in assembly, I was hired because of my multi-language skills (well, and they could get me incredibly cheap and still pay me more than I was being paid), especially the ability to write in assembly. I talked them into multi-language production of products, C where C was best, Ada where Ada was required (not sure there was a best there), Assembly on specific functions that were called a lot. All my UI stuff before Windows was Assembly, I expect a lot of the first Windows code was assembly too. That was just the proper way then. Now machines are so much faster they can do so much more, that the software complexity has gotten to the point where assembly should be rare. And yet, a glance at the first shading languages for graphics systems on the last few years; we were back at assembly again. Now they are finally getting us quality high level languages again with both Cg and HLSL for OpenGL 2.0. Most things start at assembly level on computers, it just shouldn't stay there. :) _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

                                  M Offline
                                  M Offline
                                  Member 96
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #21

                                  Ahh the good old days. When optimization really meant something. I bet there aren't too many of us around any longer that remember the venerable Ralph Brown's Interrupt List, much to my surprise I stumbled across it a few months ago, still going strong even in this day and age.


                                  "A preoccupation with the next world pretty clearly signals an inability to cope credibly with this one."

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                                  • E El Corazon

                                    Rui A. Rebelo wrote: Any optimized C compiler can generate faster code than the most skilled assembly programmer. Not quite true.... However, to write an entire program in assembly to save 5-10% is really not worth it. But you can easily get half your savings by hand-optimizing the most called modules. But then there is the problem of re-use, assembly is extremely difficult to maintain, and the presence of can kill ports, bugs in them can waste valuable man hours. I can optimize code better than the Intel, Borland or Microsoft compilers, haven't tried any others; but more importantly, I cannot find long term value in doing so anymore. When we were doing DOS programs, the efficiency of assembly far outweighed the compilers of that time. Now, the compilers have closed the gap, and the complexity of systems makes assembly undesireable. But it is still faster, just not worth the time. Rui A. Rebelo wrote: Assembly is just as boring as Cobol. Having done both, I agree. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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                                    R Offline
                                    Rui A Rebelo
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #22

                                    I checked the assembly code made by 2 optimizing compilers (MIPS and Kai ). I saw things no programmer would have courage to try like taking advantage of pipelining or antecipating the calls to the floating point unit so the operations would be ready on time, etc. I got convinced that one optimized compiler can control things that no human should try (eg.:registry allocation through 500 lines of code). I agree on what you say about the old DOS times. I programmed 80386 assembler then. But, believe me, some compilers have become insanelly smart. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso

                                    E 1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • J John M Drescher

                                      LISP. John

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                                      Rui A Rebelo
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #23

                                      Yeah. That was bad too. Some interesting ideas (lambda expressions, closures) lost in a sea of parenthesis, recursion, CAR, CDR and other stupid commands. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso

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                                      • J Jim Crafton

                                        Worst 1. Forte's TOOL language/environment/POS IDE. Absolutely the most annoying piece of crap I've had to use. We used to call it Forte's Object Oriented Language (FOOL). 2. VB - the language is annoying as hell, feels like it was just randomly thrown together, and the editor makes me just want to scream and start bitch slapping people after using it for 5 minutes. 3. Perl. What is it about Perl that makes it seem to cool and logical when you read the examples in the book, but when you read real world code you just want to puke at the sheer unreadability of it all. 4. LISP - cool to read about, full of interesting ideas. Can't imagine actually programming anything more complex than Hello World in it. I appreciate the power, but I just have to shake my head at the syntax. Favorites (so far) 1. Hands down, IMHO, Borland's ObjectPascal. Note that I specifically mention ObejctPascal, not plain-jane Pascal. My understanding is that Borland added a number of very cool features to ObjectPascal that were not present in original Pascal. I could look at a problem, or imagine something I wanted to build, and just "think" the full pascal solution in my head. Can't really do that with C/C++, it's just too terse. 2. Objective C - kind of weird to get used to (the whole use of "[]" to indicate message passing is a bit strange), but once you do it's fun to write in. Maybe that's more due to the framework it's typically used with than the language. 3. Python. Dunno why I like it, but it's fun to use. Overrated 1. Java. Blah, Blah, Blah, whatever. It's a tool. 'nuff said. Not horrible, but not that inspiring either. 2. C#. Slight less annoying than Java. But still overrated IMHO. Honorourable Mention 1. C++. It's OK. It's annoying. It walks a fine balance between the two. But it doesn't exactly inspire either enthusiasm or loathing. It's mentally stimulating but in weird, querky, and frequently useless ways. It's kind of like the challenge of being able to wrap both feet behind your head. It's a challenge, it takes patience and discipline to stretch and train to be able to do so, but once you've put both feet behind your head you're left thinking: "Well what's next and why did want to do this in the first place?" ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned

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                                        Rui A Rebelo
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #24

                                        Python is nice, better than Perl, I agree. Pascal was one the first languages I liked, but betrayed it for C. Agree on Lisp, C++, Java & C#. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso

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                                        • M Marc Clifton

                                          SQL. It's not structured. It's not just for queries. It's not a language. To prove it, the "language" addition was called "PL-SQL". Hmmm. Programming Language-Structured Query Language". Yup. That makes sense. Jeesh. Programmers and their acronyms. ;P Marc My website
                                          Latest Articles: Object Comparer String Helpers

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                                          Rui A Rebelo
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #25

                                          I think the problem is that SQL was just abused. Can't think (and don't know) of something much better to tell the DBMS what to do and let it decide how. Rui A. Rebelo De perto, ninguém é normal. (At a close look, no one is normal) C. Veloso

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