Be Excellent To Each Other

PHP.

Oh yes, I did CLAIT at school (a clash prevented Computer Studies, which I ended up doing as an additional GCSE anyway).

Thou Shalt Not Give Faulty Acronyms To Schoolchildren - any foo' know you don't include minor words like 'and' and 'or' in acronyms. Now I'm a grown-up it's hard to believe that Computer Literacy and Information Technology wasn't a joke that got out of hand.

I've yet to meet someone who had a GOOD teacher for their A level computer-ing. HMPH.



Everything they teach you up to A-level is ridicuously simplistic and not useful in anyway shape or form. Why do these thnigs exist?



See above!

Sounds like GCSE German for my year group. We just had a few supply teachers who didn't know or speak German, they just had a pile of very old textbooks which we were meant to work through ourselves somehow. Some lessons one year we were timetabled to sit in the GCSE PE 'class room' because there was no other free rooms - it stank, and we had to put our work on our laps, although few people actually worked. The only one of 25 of us who passed the GCSE was a German lad (which may have been the only GCSE he passed).

The ideal learning programming language is Python or Ruby. Python probably takes it in terms of sheer all-round niceness and the amount of concepts it introduces - I can recommend Apress's Beginning Python which is pretty well written. Ruby is pretty good, but has a few less intuitive concepts, less clear syntax and its books tend to be a bit poor - the Pickaxe is horribly overrated.

PHP is pretty damn ugly and annoying but is exceptionally easy to pick up and play with. It's a language that has been thrown together rather than fitting together nicely. It's not a good language for "learning programming" but is suitable for hacking stuff together despite any experience.

C# is pretty much Java, which has upsides and downsides - it's quite fast, it's a nice compromise between speed-and-clarity, but it has long-winded syntax and forces you to use objects for everything.

I make objects move, and textures change into other textures. Don't confuse me with your programming stuff!

The book arrived! And it really does start from the beginning - I think I'm gonna be ok.

I tried "Hello World" and it works fine. However, my console only flashes on and then closes itself instead of staying open and actually displaying my "program". Anybody know why? It's the basic cmd console.

Because that's how windows works. If you want it to delay the end of the program, you have to ask it to.

(Also, I think there's an option in Visual studio which also has the same effect.)

Ah right. In the book it doesn't mention that, it just says that the cmd prompt will remain open and show my "hello world".

Run it from the console.

If you're running a command line program from windows it'll close the window when it's finished. There's plenty of ways to get it to pause though. Alternatively, start a windows command line and run said program from that.

Edit : 3 answers in as many minutes, does this place rock or what?

I've fathomed a way. I was running it and debugging, but if I run it without debugging it keeps it open. Presumably when it debugs, it just runs the program to test it and then closes it.

edit: It does indeed rock!

The easy way would be to chuck in a breakpoint just before the program ends if you want it to pause with no extra work while debugging.

Yeah that would be easy, were it not my first ever program in C#

I'm just following the book!

Am I right in thinking that debug does just that? Checks the program and closes it? Whereas running it without debug is like running it from the point of view of an end user who may have downloaded my program?

No, the point of debug is to enable you to debug it (after all, how does it know a bug as compared to the behaviour you wanted, you may have wanted it to horribly crash). Breakpoints are places where you stop the program from running, and then it allows you to step through each instruction and see what values things are taking, hence allowing you to find wrong ones, and find the bug causing it. Just one of the things that debuggers allow you to do.

Right. So does anyone know why the book tells me that the console will show my "hello world" when in fact it just closes the cmd prompt? Is the book BROKEN? I've followed the instructions exactly.

Are you seeing Hello World at all before it closes?
Oh. So, do you have a command prompt, but running your program then closes that prompt? Even though you already had a prompt anyway before running the program?

I wouldn't think it's broken - certainly not in terms of teaching you to program as compared to using visual studio. Did it actually ask you to debug it as compared to just running it? Could be that VS2008 works differently from 2005. Could be the professional version works differently to the express version. As it stands the program is doing exactly what it's supposed to, it's just the enviroment around it that isn't behaving quite as you'd expect, but don't worry.

Basically, I've written the Hello World in Visual C# Express, I click "start debugging" like the book says, the cmd prompt flashes up for a split second with my Hello World in it and closes immediately. It is there, but it closes. However, if I click "start without debugging" the cmd prompt stays open. However, the book says to click "start debugging" and shows the cmd prompt OPEN. Bah!

I don't already have the cmd prompt open, by the way.

Right, time to install c# express (2008, I'm guessing) and see what's up.

I'm not sure anything is actually wrong. I always thought debugging something runs the program and closes it?

As I said, the programs fine, the enviroment isn't behaving as you expect. I'm just looking to see if there's a way to change that.

I do remember an option about whether the console closes automatically, but it's been a long time since I've done anything console based.

To be honest, it looks like it moves onto Windows based stuff pretty soon, so fuck it!

Bugger me, express is sparse. No option there, but I get exactly the same results as you do (that is one pauses, one doesn't), and I wouldn't worry about it.

Aces! Thanks, Dave (And CUS)

PHP.

Shh!

Goddamned hippy.

(I have idly started to write a book called 'How to learn how to program (with PHP)'. It is written in PHP. It's actually forming together scarily well, so that even when I inevitably completely forget about it in a day or two, it might be worth posting anyway, as a 'How to write a book (with PHP' example.)

How does it bind the pages? With $string?


I AM THE FUNNIEST PERSON EVER.

I'm meeting you half-way you stupid hippies.

"Make it £1 a month!"

Haaaaaaa-rooooooooo!

I can do a mean Nixon impression, me.

You order the deaths of civilian north Koreans in unlawful air strikes? FUCKING HELL JONAROB!!!

Only playing, though.

Oh if you're only playing that's okay.