Survey posted 2000-09-30 06:43 by Andy Selle.

Contribute ideas to surveys by sending a mail to survey@ticalc.org.

I like programming in C with some C++ thrown in. Once you start using C++ classes, programming is never the same. Iostreams don't seem very worthwhile, however. They make a program significantly bigger than needed without adding much functionality.

QuickBasic (not Qbasic) is a decent language, but it is slow and lacks structure. Pascal is nice, but not as practical as C/C++. I've tried ASM for both the 8086 and TI-89 and didn't get very far. I've also tried Perl but I've never used LISP.

I agree that iostream is unnecessary in terms of functionality. It also makes both object code and source code longer.

// with stdio
printf("%04d-%02d-%02d\n", today.da_year, today.da_mon, today.da_day);

// with iostream
cout << setw(4) << today.da_year << '-' << today.da_mon / 10 << today.da_mon % 10 << '-' << today.da_day / 10 << today.da_day % 10 << endl;

not only that, but they redefine the left & right shift operators so they perform a completely different function. anywhere else you do that and it's frowned upon, considered bad programming practices.

I learned a bit of c to understand the tigcc documentation but when I try to code in c I hate it because I see how the code corresponds to the assembly equivilent so I think why not just do it in assembly.

C takes care of juggling variable around for you, but rarely do I use more than 5 variables or 3 arrays at a given time. And when I do have an excess of variables I put them to ram and refer to them by index with an address register pointing to free memory.

I also like allocating memory off the stack. I believe c does this for local variables, but i use it
for a lot more.

Assembly also has better stack managent.

I have found Assembly to be just as buggy as c. Most bugs are stupid things resulting from a quick hack. By Rereading code i can usually find such bugs.

Of course if I was making a serious math program I would probably do it in c.

Unless there is a C compiler that supports all of the calculator's built-in math function (if there is please tell me!), if you want to write a serious math program you're probably better of using BASIC.

The advantage of using C instead of assembly is that it's more portable. You can use the same C code whether you're writing for a TI-83, a TI-89, or a PC, but assembly code needs to be almost completely rewritten for each platform.

All C compilers that can target the calc are capable of using all the calc's built-in math functions. You just need to know how to use them, and only a few limited ones are documented right now. Expect more or less complete documentation of how to use the math functions when TI releases the SDK, although their usage is very different from TI-BASIC (see TIGCCLIB's estack.h for more info).

I've never seen C for the 83.
Is there a 83+ equilvalant?

Nick_S

What about VB? Am I *really* the only person who uses it? I voted "Other" btw.

--Darkfire

I can assure you that you are not the only person who uses VB, and whatnot...

What about punchcards?

Yes, the VERY best choice indeed.

~Apu from the Simpsons made the first Tic Tac Toe game in punch cards, then Bart spilt it!

pff, naw. i usually just take a really small magnet to a floppy disk & write the individual bits by hand.

What about burning CDRs by hand with a laser pointer? Its quite fun, as long as you use the right kind of refraction membrane to focus the beam;)

How about soldering on a motherboard adapter with switches that you use to set and reset bits in the ram?

forget that, i'm gonna use calcfreak901's laser pointer to etch the silicon wafer to make the rom chip!

I love programming in Pascal! It is not just a beginner's language: it is a structured, object oriented language that is fast, versatile, easy to learn, and not near as cryptic as C or C++.

My development platform:
Mac IIsi, 9 MB RAM, 80 MB HD, and Think Pascal 4.5d4 (a cool free compiler for 68K Macs: it auto formats your code and has what some consider to be one of the best debuggers ever).

For PowerMacs I like METAL. It's like BASIC, but compiled and more versatile. It's also free.

-Z86MON-

C++ is just as easy to learn as Pascal if it's taught right. Don't know about C though: printf( ) format strings could easily confuse a novice.

No, having to do three lines of iostream crap to get formatting equivalent to ten characters of printf() style formatting is what is confusing :)

Frankly, if you can't understand either one after about 10 minutes, you shouldn't be programming at all. Is printf(...) really that hard to understand?

Good question. I don't think either one is hard, but that's because I've written a lot of code using each type of I/O.

But what do y'all think? Novice programmers, which is easier to understand?

// program #1
#include <stdio.h>
int main( )
{
float a, b, c;
printf("Enter three numbers: ");
scanf("%f %f %f", &a, &b, &c);
printf("\n%8.2f%8.2f%8.2f\n", a, b, c);
return 0;
}

// program #2
#include <iostream.h>
int main( )
{
float a, b, c;
cout << "Enter three numbers: ";
cin >> a >> b >> c;
cout.setf(ios::fixed);
cout << endl << setprecision(2) << setw(8) << a
<< setw(8) << b << setw(8) << endl;
return 0;
}

That last cout statement was supposed to be

cout << endl << setprecision(2) << setw(8) << a
<< setw(8) << b << setw(8) << c << endl;

I have yet to do anything beyond a canned "hello world" prog in C and I understood both of those equally well. Of course, learning 4 different versions of TI-BASIC certainly doesn't hurt...nor does learning a bit of code for a friend's color casio graphing calc (learned the hard way...playing around with commands). I also did a bit of 4-bit graphics programming in BASIC for an Apple IIe in 4th and 5th grade gifted program. Which brings me to a completely unrelated yet still valid question: why do schools prefer macintra^H^Hoshes?

eofpi and the unimatrix's 45.599850351139 BASIC cents

very good question cause they are a royal pain in the @$$ to network, unlike Windoze & Linux.

Which brings up another good point, why do schools prefer Windoze?

-JrJinfinity

Because there aren't mainstream, easy-to-use word processing apps with nice pretty GUIs for Linux, *BSD, or BeOS (not entirely sure on that last one...anyone able to confirm or negate that?).

eofpi and the unimatrix's 45.599850351139 cents

Are you saying WordPerfect & StarOffice are hard to use? IMHO WordPerfect is the Office Suite that Microsoft only wishes they could be. Can't you see Microsoft copied many features found in WordPerfect 8 for Office 2000, & Wordperfect 9 is much more advanced.

Wordperfect is available for small cost for Linux, & StarOffice is free I believe.

Don't keep getting sucked in by the Microsoft Lies.

-JrJinfinity

'cuz that's who apple targets. they had this brilliant stategy that they'd get people using smacs when they were young, so naturally they'd buy them later.

unfortunately, businesses buy pcs & schools (should) train people for businesses. on top of that, many people already had pcs at home, so naturally they just buy a newer one.