What is programming like?

justmy2cents · 05-17-2017, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GazL

To be frank, I think that's mostly just language snobbery at work. Much like the derision that BASIC tended to get from some quarters in the past. If you're having fun, then good on you, just ignore the nay-sayers.

Whether something gets called a script or program seems mostly down to common convention and little more than that:

sed, awk, expect, shell, perl, python: script
BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, Java, etc: program.

If you try and come up with some sort of hard criteria for a distinction you'll just find yourself with lots of exceptions to the rule, so best not to even try. Just have fun coding and don't worry about it.

I couldn't agree more, aslong as it does what you need it too (in the most elegant way possible) than that's all that matters.. Having fun is a side benefit.

AwesomeMachine · 05-17-2017, 12:27 PM

I must make note that for system administration tasks the shell works pretty well, because the programs needed already exist on the system. But if you're writing an application program, like the thousands of packages in any distro, you're going to use a compiled language, preferably oo.

No one can write serious programs that run efficiently using a script.

justmy2cents · 05-17-2017, 12:31 PM

@ Awesome

Quote:

But if you're writing an application program, like the thousands of packages in any distro, you're going to use a compiled language, preferably oo.

No one can write serious programs that run efficiently using a script.

Yeah for that I know Linus used to GTK but now uses QT.. So if im programming for Linux ill probably choose one of those two..

Laserbeak · 05-17-2017, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs

Some programming languages are non-procedural, such as Prolog. (If you're itching to solve Rubik's Cube, or a logic puzzle, or a Sudoku puzzle, and you don't know how to write a procedure to do that ... Prolog – especially gprolog – is your friend.)

Yeah... I had to take Scheme (a variation of Lisp) in college, I absolutely HATED it, the only computer class I really had trouble in. Assembly language was a piece of cake.

Laserbeak · 05-17-2017, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GazL

Whether something gets called a script or program seems mostly down to common convention and little more than that:

sed, awk, expect, shell, perl, python: script
BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, Java, etc: program.

I would put Perl and Python into the actual programming language category. To my mind, scripting languages rely mainly on launching other programs to do their work, while programming languages do most of their work with built-in functions or importable libraries.

I tend to use bash scripts only for starting up or shutting down either the system or other, large programs such as a database like ORACLE that takes many steps. Not to do real work.

Programming languages do the hard work themselves.