Garry,
> Very kind of you. Happy to be of service.
> Of course, please feel free to pass my messages forward.
> If others can benefit from my experience or "insights"
> then I'm all for it. Naturally, I don't mind the exposure.
Thank you!
> Well, I do have a reasonably well-stocked bookshelf, but
> many of the titles you'll see there are out of print.
> I'll do a review and see what I can come up with. Some of
> them will be available through libraries, others will have
> been revised and be available. Some are just dead, Jim.
Any suggestions will be appreciated. I have learned two things in this
respect: Author's names are often useful anyway, since if they wrote a
great book 20 years ago, they have probably written great books in the
intervening years, and also, many of the out of print books are still
available on eBay, and through a few on-line businesses that deal
specifically in buying and dumping out-dated technology books, at extreme
bargain prices.
> Java is portable on purpose. The stated aim has been "write
> once, run anywhere." Java is, if anything, more portable in
> some respects than 'C'. One doesn't "compile" Java programs
> for each new platform, one submits them to the appropriate
> VM (Virtual Machine). There's a Java VM for Windows, for
> Unix, for Mac OS, and so on. In this sense, it's actually
> an interpreted language.
I see. It is like Perl, only somewhat better perhaps, in that it can
literally be 'written once', and ported to various interpreters, whereas
Perl needs to be written a little differently for various OS's.
> Having said all that:
> I believe learning Java is worthwhile.
I have already won an eBay auction for an introduction to Java book and CD,
which wound up costing me (shipping included) $9.50. It is surely not
comprehensive, but will be enough to give me a look into the language.
> Learn assembly language (at least the basics). Learn 'C'
> (learn it well). Become acquainted with C++, as it's
> concepts are quite similar to Java. (You can substitute
> Pascal and Delphi for 'C' and C++, but they're not as
> widely used.) By the time you've done this, I won't need
> to tell you what to do next.
I've already got all the necessary stuff to do this, and has been part of my
general plan. I am also planning on at least a brief trip through Basic, as
well, while I am covering DOS essentials, such as Batch files, Doskey
macros, etc. I have GBasic, QBasic, VBasic, the full set of Basic
languages... I think... it seems to me that this language, and DOS, played
such a huge part in PC development, that at least some level of knowledge of
it would be a big plus, in understanding everything that came after. This
seems to have already been the case for me. The modern programming language
books just don't bother to explain raw basic stuff. Reading them has given
me the feeling that I am trying to build a knowledge base on sand. Then I
started going back to DOS, and there are pipes, and subst, and redirects,
and all sorts of programming functions, along with explanations that even
the clueless can understand. This strategy might wind up setting back a
little time at the beginning, but it might turn out to be time well spent.
> If you intend to service a broad public, don't ignore the
> Windows family. It may not be the best platform, and it
> may have its blemishes, and it's publishers may be cretins,
> but you can't sell the public what's best for it, only what
> they believe they want.
> If you intend to target the more hard-core environments,
> where the back-end is king (major database stuff, server
> stuff), or if you are just a purist, go with the Unix
> family (Unix, Linux, BSD, QNX). Any effort you invest
> there will not be wasted.
Actually, I don't have an 'intended target' yet.<g> I'm actually a full time
painter, who came on-line 18 months ago (I was on-line back in the 1980's,
and early 90's, but was side-tracked for about seven years by a stroke) and
learned some HTML to write a website for my paintings and articles. I
decided I wanted to upgrade to a virtual server, and discovered that in
order to do so, I would have to learn many things; Telnet, Perl, Unix, CGI,
etc., and within the past few months, the interest has continued to
mushroom. At present, Perl is my best language at the moment, as I am using
it in both Linux and Windows, and actually able to write some very basic but
functional programs, that I needed to modify my WebPages.
Once I work the 'bugs' out of my head, as far as programming in general is
concerned, and get some time in writing small utilities for myself, to
perform in-house tasks, I will be moving to learning CGI programming, as it
will be immediately useful to me, where my website is concerned. Where I go
from there is anyone's guess.
> Two things here:
> OS/2 never got off the ground in terms of market share.
> I attended the first OS/2 developers' conference in
> Seattle, and still have my "Microsoft OS|2" mug and
> lapel pin. I spoke with J. Gordon Letwin, its chief
> architect -- (also creator of HDOS, ca. 1978) -- and
> others of the team. I knew nothing of Unix at the time.
> I came away convinced that, on its merits, this would be
> a killer OS. Microsoft pulled the rug from under it,
> and the rest is history. (Later I learned that much of
> what was good in OS/2 was derived from Unix -- Letwin
> was well acquainted with Unix.)
I must be digging in the right places for information: I am currently
reading 'Inside OS/2' by Gordon Letwin (with an introduction by Bill Gates),
and it is very interesting, and informative. I also currently have a
computer set up with OS/2 ver3, but haven't had a chance to do much with it,
yet, except to set it up for dual-boot, with DOS 6.2. Letwin is a very lucid
writer; he makes a lot of programming issues clear, that other people either
ignore, or are incapable of explaining clearly (which makes me wonder just
how well they really understand the subject they are explaining.
> Windows, on the other hand, did get off the ground,
> and has become the dominant consumer operating system.
> It's possible that it will suffer some loss of market
> share, but that's hardly going to be an overnight
> thing.
I've read your later remarks, regarding the lack of backward compatibility
between VB6 (which happens to be the ONLY programming software I paid full
retail price for... less than 3 months ago) and the new dotNET version. It
does seem that MS has literally done something to offend every aspect of
their faithful public in its recent releases. Up until as recently as two
months ago, I was an at least partial MS/Windows defender, because a lot of
the gripes I saw were ill-advised; people complaining about Windows' poor
performance, who never bothered to defrag or maintain the OS, etc., and who
never stopped to think about the difficulty of writing an operating system
that had the enormous plug and play kind of compatibility that Windows
affords its users. I expect that a lot of irate Windows users who ran out an
bought Linux found out for themselves, that the learning curve, and lack of
any sort of plug and play compatibility (heh... compile it yourself...) have
learned that the grass is not necessarily greener in Unix country, for those
who do want Windows ease-of-use.
This latest MS release seems to be qualitatively more nasty than their
previous behaviour, in that it attacks the faithful consumer, web developer,
and now, program developer, in ways never done before, to such a blatant
degree. whatever I choose to do with programming, on the web, and in my own
computer, I will have to work either within or without the strict and stern
framework that MS seems intent on enforcing. I will probably opt for working
outside their control mechanisms. I will certainly go to whatever trouble I
must, in order to insure that when their 'Smart Tags' are eventually
released, they will not work on my website, and if there is a market for
such a fix, it is one possible avenue for me to pursue.
I will also most certainly not purchase XP, since it is a software package
that is capable of deciding whether or not my computer is an appropriate
place in which to operate, based on what other software configurations I
happen to have implemented, w/o MS's permission, and then places me in the
position of supplicant, having to go to the vendor (a vendor who has an
established reputation for being non-responsive to service requests in the
past) with my hand out, asking for them to PLEASE reinstate my right to use
software that I have already paid for the right to use.
Now it seems that I will also not be using the VBasic programming language
in any great capacity, for anything beyond the Win98 platform. It looks as
if I am not that far off topic, after all, MS has in one quick stroke made
VBasic6 an appropriate topic on this list!<g>
> I still believe that you are better off if you start
> with assembly and 'C', even if you later learn VB.
Agreed. I have already corralled several C and C/C++ books and the necessary
compiler, etc.
Assembly Language is turning out to be more of a challenge, since it is
linked to computer architecture. I will have to locate copies of MSAM and
MS-Link. I already have located and downloaded from
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/ a large tutorial and the necessary software for
his version of assembly language called HLA (high level assembly). I'm not
sure if it is what I am looking for, but a cursory reading seems to indicate
that it might be very useful. The few books on assembly at the local
computer store are all written @1995 or before, and focus on 486 and before
machines, which is ok because I happen to have a 486 and a 386, but also no
ok, because I also have PIII machines, and realistically want to learn
something that is current.
> In following one of John-O's links on opinions
> re MS and its current adventures, I landed on
> the following page:
> http://www.mvps.org/vb/index2.html?rants/vfred.htm
> and found myself staring wide-eyed at a LONG list
> of NEW incompatibilities between Visual Basic 6.0
> and the new .NET version of VB (which these people
> refer to as "Visual Fred").
Thanks, I'll check this out later.
> My earlier remarks may still be true, for what that's
> worth, but I'm beginning to have my doubts about VB as
> a viable career path.
Heh. Me too.
-wittig http://www.robertwittig.com/
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