Coding aid

[UncleEbenezer]

I started off at school on BASIC (of course) then when I went into higher education we ended up doing Pascal, which seems to have disappeared without trace (cue loads of people saying something about Delphi, which is another closed book to me)

Subsequent incarnations of Pascal include - among many others - ADA in the 1980s, and to a lesser extent JAVA in the 1990s.

[stewamax]

Pascal owes a lot to the fiendishly baroque Algol 68 - which in turn is unsurprisingly based on Algol 60.
There is nothing (well not much) new under the sun.

OP's comments about coding aids raises all sort of challenges for language designers: do they try to include everything that a programmer might conceivably want - which case they end up with IBM's PL/I - or create a simple* (and ideally elegant) base like Algol 60 or Simula and then add wrappers or pre-compilers or interpreters for specific business needs like report writing.


* - with the exception of Algol's 'Own' variables that were a pig to implement and often were omitted

[GrahamPlatt]

Interesting article on an “AI” which assists in writing code (or at least, in searching out appropriate snippets from others).
Called copilot (which is also the name of some GPS software I used to have).

The idea gives me conniptions!

But that's because I've seen what autocomplete and shonky refactoring tools did to Java
SD: "Why's that method there?"
JAVA-GUY:"The IDE added it when I created the class"
EXIT pursued by a rubber duck

I can't see how it's not just going to add more "cargo cult cut-and-pasters" in to the pool of what passes for programmers these days
- just get a rubber duck!

That said: I'll happily read the article if you post the link

-sd

“ OpenAI’s Codex technology is already being used in Microsoft’s GitHub to power a feature called “Copilot,” which essentially autocompletes lines of code for programmers.”

https://www.semafor.com/article/01/27/2 ... g-obsolete

[GeoffF100]

I started off at school on BASIC (of course) then when I went into higher education we ended up doing Pascal, which seems to have disappeared without trace (cue loads of people saying something about Delphi, which is another closed book to me)

I played around with Delphi. It was great. I could build GUI's by dragging and dropping widgets onto a template window. It generated template Pascal code, and all I had to do was fill in the details. It is still going:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... _(software)

Python and Java GUI coding is not so simple, but the result is more flexible. Pascal was a fine language. It is sad that it has seen better times. The original Mac operating system was written in Pascal, and had wonderful documentation.

[AleisterCrowley]

I've downloaded latest Python.. time to have play as I'm now unemployed...

[GeoffF100]

I've downloaded latest Python.. time to have play as I'm now unemployed...

The official tutorial is a good place to start:

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html

Python is good, and it seems to be gradually taking over the world.

[servodude]

I've downloaded latest Python.. time to have play as I'm now unemployed...

The official tutorial is a good place to start:

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html

Python is good, and it seems to be gradually taking over the world.

I've found that on windows I tend to get on better with it if installed via Anaconda

[GeoffF100]

I've downloaded latest Python.. time to have play as I'm now unemployed...

The official tutorial is a good place to start:

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html

Python is good, and it seems to be gradually taking over the world.

I've found that on windows I tend to get on better with it if installed via Anaconda

I have mostly used Python on Linux: Xubuntu and Raspberry Pi's. Genie is a very good editor. If you need a debugger, Idle is more reliable than the more glitzy Thonny.

[kiloran]

I've downloaded latest Python.. time to have play as I'm now unemployed...

I have mostly used Python on Linux: Xubuntu and Raspberry Pi's. Genie is a very good editor. If you need a debugger, Idle is more reliable than the more glitzy Thonny.

I used to use the Eclipse IDE, but it's over-complicated for my needs so I've been using PyCharm for the past few years

--kiloran

[AleisterCrowley]

I've downloaded latest Python.. time to have play as I'm now unemployed...

The official tutorial is a good place to start:

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html

Python is good, and it seems to be gradually taking over the world.

I will have a read when I get back from the Fox & Hounds

[csearle]

The idea gives me conniptions!

Great word. C.