potential PPC Amiga REAL CHEAP

/*
# In the beginning God created the cpu and the opcode.
# And the coder was without sense, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the coder. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the coder.
# And God said, Let there be C, and there was.....
*/

#include

int main (void) {

printf("Hello World \n");

}

:-P

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:

Actually, unlike VB 6.0, Vb.Net's code files (source code) makes reverse-engineering a compiler for an alternate platform ALOT easier.  Every property involved in creating forms and controls is exposed in the source code.  It would just be a matter of creating [insert platform of choice] libraries functionally equivalent to MS's .Net Runtime libraries and a compiler.

Sure the IL is readable (unless you run it through a good obfuscator which breaks ILDASM).  

But, it's the mscorelib that needs to be reverse engineered.  And, that's not a simple task of changing API call for API call.  You could probably learn a lot from the documentation, reflection, etc. but making a full replacement is not going to be easy.

(Also, VB.net code still mysteriously calls the old vb libraries, mainly for backwards compatibility...  so you'd have to reverse that too)

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:

A better counter-point would be to show me something that can only be done in C and not VB.Net.  

Ok.  (I'll stick to Windows, since you already said you weren't interested in cross compatibility)

Low level OS control, system calls*, port access, memory management, use inline assembly, make fast running programs, etc.

Note:
Yes, I know you can DllImport just about any dll.  But, not all API calls are exposed in the system dlls.  So, to write a wrapper you'd have to use VC++!

[Louis Dias]

adolescent wrote:

Low level OS control, system calls*, port access, memory management, use inline assembly, make fast running programs, etc.

All the old 6.0 WinAPI calls still work.  You do when defining a structure have to use the new method but all api calls still work.  I communicate with COM and LPT ports both through an ActiveX wrapper and directly using some code I found on MSDN:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823179

lou_dias wrote:

adolescent wrote:

Low level OS control, system calls*, port access, memory management, use inline assembly, make fast running programs, etc.

All the old 6.0 WinAPI calls still work.  You do when defining a structure have to use the new method but all api calls still work.  I communicate with COM and LPT ports both through an ActiveX wrapper and directly using some code I found on MSDN:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823179

Lou, I teach programming at college level.

VB is taught to the young kids that aren't so bright and just barely managed the grades to get innto college.  It used to be Pascal.

Java is taught to the next level up.  It used to be C and assembly (68k and x86).

C++ and assembly is taught at the highest intelligence level for the most complex assignments.

What does this say to you?

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:

All the old 6.0 WinAPI calls still work.  You do when defining a structure have to use the new method but all api calls still work.  I communicate with COM and LPT ports both through an ActiveX wrapper and directly using some code I found on MSDN:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823179

And what about stuff that isn't in the API?

For ports, as I said and you've shown, it's possible with a wrapper or system library access.  With this you're limited to what dll is available, and wether the method is available that does what you want, and is externally accessible.

How about this (it's fairly common to need this information);  Get CPU information, speed, model, manufacturer, stepping, etc. using just VB code.  

[adolescent]

@mdma

In the US, VB is taught to CIS students.  

CS students don't get the easy way out.  (Although, my school recently cancelled their last remaining assembly course.  I always wanted to get back there and take it but I had a bad experience with the professor in a previous calculus class.)

adolescent wrote:
@mdma

In the US, VB is taught to CIS students.  

CS students don't get the easy way out.  (Although, my school recently cancelled their last remaining assembly course.  I always wanted to get back there and take it but I had a bad experience with the professor in a previous calculus class.)

That's a shame, not that there is much call for it professionally these days but it always nice to have it as a skill.  No matter how rusty it is (like mine, ahem!). :-)

[Louis Dias]

mdma wrote:

VB is taught to the young kids that aren't so bright and just barely managed the grades to get innto college.  It used to be Pascal.

Java is taught to the next level up.  It used to be C and assembly (68k and x86).

C++ and assembly is taught at the highest intelligence level for the most complex assignments.

What does this say to you?

Most people go there whole lives without ever learning to drive a stick shift.  Does that make them dumb?

I am part of that old curriculum than learned Fortran, Pascal, C and assembler.  I went back on my own and took a class on C++ and read a book on Java and PHP....  So what?

Infact, that is my answer - "So what?"

I prefer VB.net - so what?

lou_dias wrote:

mdma wrote:

VB is taught to the young kids that aren't so bright and just barely managed the grades to get innto college.  It used to be Pascal.

Java is taught to the next level up.  It used to be C and assembly (68k and x86).

C++ and assembly is taught at the highest intelligence level for the most complex assignments.

What does this say to you?

Most people go there whole lives without ever learning to drive a stick shift.  Does that make them dumb?

Useless analogy.  That just makes them American, not dumb.  Most drivers in the world learn to drive using a manual gear stick.

I am part of that old curriculum than learned Fortran, Pascal, C and assembler.  I went back on my own and took a class on C++ and read a book on Java and PHP....  So what?

Infact, that is my answer - "So what?"

I prefer VB.net - so what?

So you prefer it. The whole point that everyone else is trying to make to you is that just because you prefer it, that doesn't make it superior to everything else.

I prefer Magic for Rapid Application Development.  There is *nothing* on this earth that can touch it for speed and ease of development.

Does that make it the best language in the world, just because I prefer it for a specific type of development?

[srg86]

IMHO Pascal and Delphi always blew BASIC and VB away.

VB is just for teaching bad programming practices.

[Louis Dias]

adolescent wrote:

How about this (it's fairly common to need this information);  Get CPU information, speed, model, manufacturer, stepping, etc. using just VB code.  

Code: [Select]

Imports System.Management

Dim query As New ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from win32_processor")

For Each cpu As ManagementObject In query.Get()

    Console.WriteLine(cpu("Name"))
    Console.WriteLine(cpu("Speed"))

Next

etc...

also look here for user and OS information

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/interopmigration/linux/mvc/takeadv.mspx

[Louis Dias]

mdma wrote:

So you prefer it. The whole point that everyone else is trying to make to you is that just because you prefer it, that doesn't make it superior to everything else.

No, everyone including you are saying that I have an inferior intellect for preferring it.  The difference being I never cared what anyone else preferred...not one iota...

lou_dias wrote:

mdma wrote:

So you prefer it. The whole point that everyone else is trying to make to you is that just because you prefer it, that doesn't make it superior to everything else.

No, everyone including you are saying that I have an inferior intellect for preferring it.  The difference being I never cared what anyone else preferred...not one iota...

No, you are saying it is superior.

What everyone else is saying, is that if it is so superior how come it is not used by or taught to people that do have  superior intellect?

[Karlos]

lou_dias wrote:

mdma wrote:

So you prefer it. The whole point that everyone else is trying to make to you is that just because you prefer it, that doesn't make it superior to everything else.

No, everyone including you are saying that I have an inferior intellect for preferring it.  The difference being I never cared what anyone else preferred...not one iota...

Now you are getting a little paranoid. Nobody has said you are intellectually inferior for preferring VB but people have questioned your judgement as to why you didn't like C/C++. Or rather why you claim "suck ass" and are "fugly", why we should recognise VB's superiority and then give some of the least well reasoned arguments I have read that aren't even consistent across several posts.

You also made yourself look silly in the way you criticised not only C/C++ as languages but those who prefer it over Basic syntax and their attitudes, or that C/C++ is somehow a dead or stagnant language not used by more than a handful of geeks and eschewed by the buisness world, or by throwing down the "what can C do that VB cant?" gauntlet when it is patently obvious that C's scope is wider than VB.net and so there are whole avenues of development for which C can be used and VB.net can't. Wether or not that's different "in 40 years time" is irrelavent today.

C has already stood that particular test of time, given birth to several syntactically related languages and wether you like it or not is here to stay.

In the end, the only person inferring you are a bit silly is yourself because you cannot separate your preference for a language over another from its inherent capabilities overall. You like it, therefore it is better. You don't like C, therefore it is inferior, starting right back at your first post on the matter. Hardly well reasoned.

As for the rest of the people, we recognise tools that are good for particular jobs. VB is good as a RAD tool under windows etc, but it is not the best RAD tool available. Java is a good choice for web / mobile devices, but it is not the best tool for large scale application development (even though the language itself is quite nice). PHP is a good choice for rapid development of server pages and other scripted applications but it's not so good for making desktop applications. Asm is good for low level embedded work / driver layer and performance critical code but it is not so good for full scale application development.

There is one language that is actually quite useable for all these purposes and more. And it isn't VB. It's C.

[adolescent]

lou_dias wrote:

Code: [Select]

Imports System.Management

Dim query As New ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from win32_processor")

For Each cpu As ManagementObject In query.Get()

    Console.WriteLine(cpu("Name"))
    Console.WriteLine(cpu("Speed"))

Next

Since you are dependant on WMI running, what about systems that don't have WMI and/or have it disabled.