[ale] Any language (wuz: Assembly Language?)

[Michael B. Trausch]

On 10/27/2013 06:02 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
> Fluent in 5 languages.  I'm impressed.  Interesting that Vala is on your list, which is not on most people's radar.  And, it's interesting that C++ is not, which is on most people's radar.
>
> So, just out of curiosity, what prompted you to learn Vala?  What pros and cons does it have?
>
> And, do you not use the "++" features of C++?

I'm currently learning Objective C (rather, the extensions to C that it 
defines), and I have a passing familiarity with C++, but I really, 
strongly dislike its mode of operation.

I started using Vala because I was writing a lot of C+GObject code, and 
Vala is a very good means of doing so, most of the time.  I'm also 
fluent in solving bugs in it, sadly, and that's why I don't use it for 
production projects; at least not wholly.  I've been known to use a 
simple Vala module here and there.

Vala is very much like C#, which is also something that drew my interest 
to it.  However, it compiles to C, which can then be compiled with C

I've played with Go.  It's OK, but it takes a little getting used to, 
and it pulls a decent amount of weight with it.  It also isn't 
integrated with anything other than GCC (it does have a standalone 
compiler) and so it lacks a bit in tooling (at least, my preferred).

One major, major downside to C++, at least which still was the last that 
I used it, was debugging.  (I'd hope that's gotten better since I last 
looked.)  Very, very difficult to do when e.g., the debugger doesn't 
demangle names for you and the like.  Also, some of the most bloated 
programs I know are... well, C++.  :-)

I've done C for a fairly long time, and am very comfortable with reading 
and writing it.  Its gotchas are limited (though growing, as the C 
standard grows), and it's powerful enough to let you shoot yourself in 
the foot, miss, and blow your whole leg off... but it's fast, native 
code.  It's easy to work through, it's easy to debug, and it is simple 
to get "obviously right" when you design your functions properly.  Also, 
tooling support is insanely good.  C is still yet the lingua franca of 
programming.

     --- Mike

-- 
Naunet Corporation Logo 	Michael B. Trausch

President, *Naunet Corporation*
? (678) 287-0693 x130 or (855) NAUNET-1 x130
FAX: (678) 783-7843

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20131027/3a246755/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: fcbiejba.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1701 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20131027/3a246755/attachment.png>