OT: Look what I can do...

[geoschmo]

Aww you guys are tough.

Yeah we did the "Hello world" stuff in class. Everything up to this point was copying down code that the instructor did or doing the step by step stuff in the book. This one was the first one that I wrote on my own. All I had to work with was what the input and required output was supposed to look like.

And as far as it being C instead of C++, all I have to say to that is, even better. I'm bilingual!

[AngleWyrm]

Suggestion for version 2:
Separate input, output and processing into their own functions. It's real good exercise. Something like

main(){
get_input( variables )
process_input( variables )
put_output(screen)
put_output(file)
}

My brother never learned to use functions, and now he codes his entire programs all in main().
So now he can't write big programs, because after a while it becomes too much to follow in one function.
Try reading a 500-line function! One page is plenty.

[NullAshton]

Nothing compared to my 500 or so lines of spagetti code written in qbasic.

[Suicide Junkie]

NullAshton said:
Nothing compared to my 500 or so lines of spagetti code written in qbasic.

Or my first serious program, which was almost a thousand lines of GW-Basic code.
All my variables were 4 or 5 character acronyms.
And it had no elses or block-ifs, since I didn't know about them at the time.
Instead, I used If-Dosomething-Goto

I'd estimate that up to 10% of the instructions in that program were gotos!

But at least it was neat, well organized spaghetti code.

[Slynky]

Gotta take my hat off to anyone who's got the initiative to learn a programminglanguage this "late in the game".

[TurinTurambar]

Slynky said:
Gotta take my hat off to anyone who's got the initiative to learn a programminglanguage this "late in the game".

Amen brother.

[Gandalf Parker]

Anyone who knows more than one language would be hard pressed to tell you to learn or not learn any particular programming language without afew more answers. In other words, dont bother learning VB unless and until you have a reason to. Something that you want to do, which it does well. Same goes for any other language. They all have their pros and cons

[Kamog]

My first program was indeed a hello world program written in BASIC, on the Apple IIE. I was so happy and proud to be learning how to program a computer. That was a long long time ago. That year I went on to write spagetti code. In those days, each line of code had a line number and you had stuff like, "100 goto 250".

Then when I took my first programming course in university, on the first day the professor asked, "put up your hand if your first programming language was BASIC". I put up my hand, along with about half the people in the class. The professor says, "You are all contaminated - you learned to write spagetti code!". That course used Modula-2, and they were very strict about your code being neatly organized. That was a good thing, because I got rid of the bad habits I picked up earlier.