Yes, another what language is good for me topic.

[Jos Brink]

Hi guys,

sorry i start a new one. the previous didn't satisfy my needs

Ok first a little history,

15 years ago i started programming, first on a C64, next in basic on a PC.
after that, the wonderfull pascal came into my life (with inline asm commands to get to the bios) .
My interest went to uControllers and I learned assembly, C51 asm & AVRasm,
till today I program using C combined with assembly. Even on a windows platform. But.. here it comes. I never programed on a GUI. During my study I did a little of VC++ 6, but i never understanded it realy.. to many libs and you are no longer in control of your program.

But, here it comes.. the main question,.
I realy need to program a nice gui for uploading software for my uControllers. And i need th use of USB, RS232, and ehternet.

What language is these days most common for this kind of applications? i want to get rid of those commandline programs and start writing my own device drivers.
(optional for mutliple platform MAC linux, WIN)

Question 2: can someone explain to me what this C#.NET is?? is this a new age language? (i'm begining to feel old )

Greeting.. and thanks..

Jos Brink

 

[frc]

you may start learning delphi. it works on the basis of pascal. it runs on windows. also delphi's linux version "kylix" is also available. You can find USB, RS232, and ethernet usage examples on torry.net and others...
c# of microsoft is the alternative of java.

 

[btbass]

I agree that Delphi is the way to go. It is easy to write solid stable programs with good looking interfaces and there are loads of free components to download to do just about anything. It is easy to learn, being an extension of Pascal and it has a blindingly fast compiler. Version 6 is the one you want. That also supports linux.
After version 6, it kind of went a bit wierd as they tried to support the .net thing.

Microsoft would say of .net, quote:

"Net is not a platform in the traditional sense; it is not a common hardware or software system. Instead, .Net is a collection of protocols that allow Internet applications to take advantage of disparate services running on different machines."

Cut to the chase, it is a Windoze API that is language independant. Last count, it had over 60,000 functions you could call! You don't write programs, you just decide what fits the bill!
Funny how visual studio begins to look more like Delphi, with forms and components to drag and drop???? They now take credit for 'Intelisense', (M$ quote: Best thing since sliced bread, if we hadn't of written it, it's so good, somebody would have.) it's a drop down list that appears as you type, with valid options and parameters to select. Kind of looks like code complete, which Delphi has had for donkeys years?
Start a new project in Visual studio and the machine writes a load of code in the background in a seperate folder, adds a load of crap that you will never need, which it wont let you edit. As you write a function, the machine is writing twice as much behind your back! 'Hello World' is a 2 meg exe. Cool! But it can run in China with a basic interpreter on a 386, no problem.

Now C# is an interesting language, that attemps to take the best bits of others and drop the crap. I have always found C++ to be over bloated and cryptic, so that can't be a bad thing. It also improves on Java. It has bits of Delphi in it as well, such as properties and interfaces. It is a very cool language. Downside, it's married to .net.

Here's something interesting. The project leader of the C# language development was Anders Hejlsberg. Anders, the great man who wrote Turbo Pascal, the first real hackers compiler for the PC. Who went on to be the team leader in the development of Delphi, the best windows develoment ide EVER.

Now it becomes clear, with wads of cash, Microsoft lured him away from Borland, (I can dig it, $$$$).
So, C# has a good pedigree, it was conceived by the Guru lexyacc, it is nothing more than:
C# = bestBits((Delphi + C + C++ + Java) - ALL_THE_CRAP) ;

Delphi = 1;
C = 2;
C++ = -10;
Java = -20;

C# = Delphi + C + C++ + Java;

And the answer is ?

Multiple choice:
How many windows has Bill Gates house got?
1: 95
2: 98
3: 2000

What does he use in his windows?
1: Blinds
2: Curtains
3: .Net