Computer Science (intelligence Central)

Hey everyone.

I just thought I would start a thread (which probably will drop off the page within a few weeks ) for anyone who is ever interested in computer programming in general, would like to learn it, what the different languages are. which is easiest to learn for a beginner etc. I know I am not the only one who delves into this aspect of computing, For context I obviously do not know EVERYTHING about it, but I do know a fair amount as I do this for a living as well. It would be nice to share some of my headspace with anyone who would like to get into it (almost all programming tools are free) or has always wanted to know a bit more than a Wiki Page.

Regards

Skyla x

 

Absolutely. Like anything, learning something as vast as this takes a lot of time and effort - and it's not for everyone. Life has so many twists and turns and being able to dedicate a large amount of a persons' free time to study is generally not there in this modern world. Interesting you mention Python though, the one language I have never really tried myself despite it's overwhelming popularity right now. It's actually overtaken Java as the most learnt. To date, the two langauges that are used the most in the world are Visual Basic and COBOL - two dinosaurs of the tech age but are never going away anytime soon.

 

Just edited the thread title Skyla. Nothing at you dear but I do get tired of this stereotypes we proffer in Anglo-America regarding science and mathematics. Anyone with a vested interest or understanding who is knowledgeable is termed a nerd, boffin, egghead. It's almost insulting really. Better to be dumb I suppose despite science making the world go around and as we will soon with the rise of materials tech, quantum computing and AI, sentient created intelligence. We could see changes in society in the space of a decade that normally would take a century.

Ethics will be paramount. How would you feel Skyla about sentient AI programming itself or creating complex algorithms at incredible speed ?

 

No problem.

I think having AI being able to self modify and introduce new code into it's own ecosystem is a dangerous idea. For one thing, Terminator 2 although yes science fiction, is not impossible to acheive. Worst case senario becoming "self aware" would mean an AI is able to overwrite human input and commands, which would lead to self launching missiles, complete software meltdown and a total reconstruction of how we as a species command and view it. As humans, we need to retain a certain level of control over what an computer can do. Computers are, for the most part, dumb. Without any code they are useless, and require commands we write for them to function. One example of a possible sentiant is the Turing Test. If an AI can fully understand the needs and roles of it's creator without being told, then it passes the test. Robots are the closest thing we have created thus far that can mimic human emotions, but again they are just running off a loop of commands that tell it how to behave until that loop is broken. As soon as the loop breaks, the exit/shutdown command is always the next protocol it follows. Safety.

 

Yes, I do agree with your theory, and Smudgers. "Nerds" was the wrong term of phrase to use, and it is nice to not be slapped with that label nowadays.

 

Considering Nintendo programmed the original Super Mario Bros. in 8Bit Assembley, that is really impressive you got a clone to work in Visual Basic. Seeing how most games today are a mixture of C++, C, Python and Assembler, using a single language proves it can be done. Lacking a game engine probably helped matters no doubt, but it must of been painful having to hard code every single sprite as to colour and collision detection alone. Flappy Bird, Snake, Angry Birds can all be written in Python or if your a devil, Java Scrpt. Scripting languages have exploded as the "goto" language of choice, and for good reason.

 

Just for a sense of what a very simple program looks like, I am currently writing my own online tutorial on Ada Programming. Here is the first working code that does something I have written for it. Anything proceded by - - is a comment and not executable code.

Code:

--
-- Ada Online Course
-- ======================
-- Expected Release Date: September 2023
-- Author: Rose, Skyla
-- Module: 1 Getting Your Feet Wet Using Ada 2021
-- File: helloworld.adb
--

with Ada.Text_IO; -- fetch the standard package for I/O

procedure Hello_World is -- entry point of procedure

   -- prints a line of text to the console shell
begin
   Ada.Text_IO.Put(Item => "Hello World!");
end Hello_World; -- exit point of procedure

 

Do you know of any teams that will be looking at AI to mass process all the data they have ? It's already heavily statistics driven but AI would take it to another level. The amount of data they can learn into machine learning programmes is enormous and makes a huge difference but on top of that in the future it will cause things like insight and ideas to spring forth from AI not limited by the amount of data inputted.

I'm a photographer and looking at the results of CHAT4 GPT and the latest version of Midjourney some of those are amazing. But it's prompt dependent and requires skill in manipulation of those. Ditto for the photography on display. Not real world but incredible results.

 

I refer you to the above post....

Don't make me have to call @Keighley on you....

 

Is his name really van Rossum @Bwood_Horn ? Did he take it from Capek Rossums Universal Robots ? Eastern Europe has an amazing tradition in pioneering science fiction and idea from Tsiolkovsky, Capek, Lem, Asimov, Klushantsev.

 

That's pretty close to how Ada was developed. Department of Defense (DoD) wanted to develop a new language that was machine dependant for the usage of software creation to control critical and real time machines. First draft was completed in France in the very late 1970's, but Ada was not common place till 1985. Several compiler vendors appeared shortly after, and during the period of 1985-1990, it was the world's most used langauge. However, Ada is not "mainstream" like Pytthon for a few reasons. DoD never relinquished control until the second draft came out (Ada'95), and by that time, C, C++ and Java were dominating the software industry. Another reason is that despite it's use on vital systems, Ada is seen by most as a "niche" language. If you want to work in the SpaceX industry, write software for medical devices, software for Air Traffic Control or train signal systems, you must learn Ada (and perhaps it's sister language, SPARK). I only waffled on because Python has become to NASA what Ada was to the DoD.

 

WFC Forums is written mostly in PHP with the interface (loading of the webpages) done in HTML.

Objective-C

 

For anyone interested in learning a language, here is my own break down on the most commonly used and which one a total beginner might have the best chance of easing into the topic.

c

Very, very well known language and known to most as the "Mother" of all languages, C is used in almost everything that utilizes speed. C runs very fast on any platform due to it's tight compile time runtime checks. No language to date can out C in what it has acheived in it's almost 50 year history. Many other languages share similar syntax to C, most notible C++, C# and Java. If you want to get into micro-controller software, embedded systems or Operating System writing, C is your goto language. Oh, and the Linux OS was built with just C alone.

Beginner Friendly: No
Learning Curve: Mid range to very difficult (memory management and string manipulation are very hard to grasp)
Size of Language: Small
Free Software: Visual Studio, Command Line, GCC, GNU compiler set

C++

A super-set of C (sibling), C++ is used mostly today in Object-Orientated algortihms and video game programming. Almost every single game engine used for the most demanding AAA games have their base code written in C++. As a general application language it has been largely phased out nowadays. C++ is used in some aviation software, but considering it contains all of C as well, it's a beast of language to learn. I cannot stand it.

Beginner Friendly: Def. Not
Learning Curve: Difficult to Mind Boggling (Templates, Exceptions, Pointers, Standard Template Library, this language can do it all... and that's never a good thing for a beginner way too much bloat).
Size of Language: Massive
Free Software: Same as above, but also runs on Q++ and smaller free IDEs.

Java

Created in the 1990s by John Gosling, Java was seen (and still is in some cases) the perfect teaching language. While it does borrow a lot of it's syntax from C/C++, it's a much more user-friendly language that does not demand you know a computer inside and out before you start. One of it's biggest draws is that it handles memory management for you, is pure Object-Orientated and is used almost everywhere today. Although it has gone down in popularity since the rise of Python, Java is still a language worth looking at. Some of the best free tools are used for Java, which also has a few "sister" libraries Swing, and Kotlin. It's not a baby language by any means, but it blows C++ out the water for ease of use. Java also compiles to byte-code not object code, so it does run slower than some languages. Oh, fan of Mine Craft? It's all Java.

Beginner Friendly: Yes
Learning Curve: Straight forward to challenging
Size of Language: Big
Free Software: Eclipse, Intelli-J

Python

Overtaken almost every single language in popularity for scripting and general applications, Python has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Most of this is down it's ease of use, very easy to read syntax, lots and lots of learning materials and a huge community of developers eager to help out. I've never used it personally, so cannot really say much else, but it's without a doubt the best language to begin with, if you want to go down the whole internet development application route. It does have some flaws though, speed being one, but overall it's pretty damn good.

Begunner Friendly: Yes
Learning Curve: Hold my hand levels of entry to moderately difficult
Size of Language: Average but bigger than C
Free Software: any viable interpreter, Pycharm

Ada

My own personal favourite language and the one I know the most indepth, Ada rivals C and C++ in terms of age, and C++ in size. Created in the late 1970's as a groundwork prototype for type-safe languages for critical and safety software, Ada was standardizsed to the public in 1995 after being tied down to the Department of Defese for the first ten or so years. Ada is not a commonly used or even known language to quite a few develper groups due to it's "niche" of development opportunities and lack of promotion through it's early adoption. But, it is very capable of doing anything C++ can and usually to a much safer level. It has type-safe pointers known as Access Types, has a much cleaner Object Orientated design, is very strongly typed and has one of the strictest compilers ever created. If you want to get into the SpaceX development world, Ada is a must. Almost all commerical flight hardware (microchips) are coded in Ada. Also, Air Traffic Control systems have been using Ada since the late 1980s. Bowing 747 uses Ada in it's command toolchain as well. It's not an easy language to learn, and it's pretty darn big to boot, but it's much safer than C++ with the learning curve of a moderate language.

Beginner Friendly: Yes and No
Learning Curve: Moderate to very challenging
Size of Language: It's bigger than Java so pretty massive
Free Software: GCC compiler toolchain, GNAT IDE, AdaCore user tools

 

Thought you might love Ada Skyla lol given who I presume its named after.

 

Learning Options.

There are serveral ways to get into this skill set. Here I have laid out the most known options and my own person thoughts on them. Some are more accessible than others.

Get a Good Book

Whatever language you may wish to learn, there is probably a book on it. Some are better than others, some are poorly written and some are even too well written to the extent they over-emphasise every little detail. What you want to do is get two books. One on your selected language and the other on programming in general. A book that has exercises to complete is even better, as it enhances your learning of the covered material, however, not all books provide answers (a base correct one anyway). Books are very "old school" nowadays, but I still consider them vital as a learning resource. As a payment it's a one and done deal, and most of them can even be downloaded via PDF format for free. If your going the C/C++/C#/Java or Visual Basic, the Deitel series of books are excellent. Some are quite highly priced mind, but the newer editions only cover the basic enhancements of the language. An older edition should be perfectly fine as a stepping stone. If you want to get into Ada, the anything by Barnes is wonderful.

PROS:

Generally affordable
One done payment forever
Can be downloaded for free off the Internet
Perfect as a learning resource
Exercises in most are a bonus

CONS:

Can get damanged through use or neglect
Some of the newer editions of a book can be quite expensive
Finding a book for a very obsure language (COBOL for example) can be very difficult
No book will ever cover the entire language in detail

Online Tutorial

Practically everyone has access to the Internet and there are some really good and well structured tutorials on any given language. Some cover the very basics and some cover the more difficult aspects of a language, such as memory management and tasking. Tutorials are very rarely written by experts in the field, but that doesn't mean the information is wrong. If the code samples they provide work, and you understand the explaination, it's a good bet the author has at least some deep knowledge. There are also tutorials you can find written by software vendors. Microsoft for example, provide video tutorials for free on getting started with their .NET platform and C# in particular. Oracle host some watch-a-long Java videos and even Harvad have some (pretty dated) Java Script and C videos with some full lectures and downloadable learning resources. It's a good route to go, where cost is hardly ever an issue.

PROS:

Free of charge (some vendors may charge for extra content)
Easily obtainable and accessible
Written by competent scholars of the language to a set level
Video tutorials are more the range now, but you can get some very good text-based ones with great sample code
Quick to breeze through and find a topic you need, most of indexes and labels to content

CONS:

Some are poorly written and have mistakes (hardly ever proof-read
Highly likely to cover concepts of a language in drips and drabs, never a full focus on a given subject
Hosting sites sometimes crash or the content gets deleted by the author
Older sites may have deceprecated content that has not been updated for years

 

I've decided to show some sample programs from here on out, going from the most basic to the complex. You are free to c/p the following and re-write them in your chosen language. These are code samples from my online tutorial in Ada 2021 I am writing in my spare time. I will briefly explain what each one does.

Tutorial One: Hello World

Code:

--
-- Ada Online Course 2023/24
-- ======================
-- Author: Rose, Skyla | Copyright (C)2023-2025 GPL
-- Module: 1 Getting Your Feet Wet Using Ada 2021
-- File: helloworld.adb
--

with Ada.Text_IO; -- fetch the standard package for I/O

procedure Hello_World -- entry point of procedure

-- prints a line of text to the console shell

begin
   Ada.Text_IO.Put(Item =>"Hello World!");
end Hello_World; -- exit point of procedure

This first basic program just prints the message Hello World to the command line.

Anything preceded by a double dash '--' is a comment. These are ignored by the compiler and are used to document the program.
Anything in blue and in bold font are keywords. These are special words the language uses to indentify built in functions and operations. You cannot name a variable the same.
Anything incased in quotation marks " " is a character string. These are treated as characters that will appear on the screen when the program executes.

Line 9 is the first executable (compilable) part of the program. Keyword 'with' is used in within the Ada language to fetch a pre-defined package from the CAS (Current Ada Standard). Thankfully, you do not have to know "how" this operation works,
just knowing that it does this is important. Following the keyword, we have the statement

Ada.Text_IO;

Ada being the name of the language and in almost all cases, is the primary package manager. The dot next to the name Ada is used to connect the primary package manager to the requested package. In this case, we want to it to fetch package Text_IO, which stands for Text Input Output. This is the primary package that contains all the procedures and functions on how text is processed. The semi-colon at the end of any line of code tells the compiler that line of code has finished executing.

A procedure is a name given to a single unit of code that acts independently from the rest of the program. Within the rules of the Ada language, any named procedure cannot return a value when it completes it's operation. Hence, these are stated to return the value of null, which means void or nothing. Any text following the procedure keyword is the given name of the procedure, and this must match the same spelling as the one after the end keyword, which signals the closing of a procedure's body of code. Keyword begin does the opposite to keyword end, it signals the start of the procedures body of code. Every 'begin' must have an 'end', such as the old saying goes.

Within the parameters of output function Put. there are two more idoms before the text to be printed.

Item =>

Item is used to index the value which output function Put will reference, and the negation operator => points the value being indexed. You can actually re-write the statement to not include either of these and it will still function the same.

Ada.Text_IO.Put("Hello World!");

Personally, I always include them for clarity and it improves readability.

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