p-lang thread: (now (have you (problems two)))

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > p-lang thread: (now (have you (problems two)))

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Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

AlsoD posted:

actually wait no, because i work in a immutable language it's
code:
let s = t

most strings in c are immutable, in the sense that trying to mutate them results in an mpu exception and a core dump :q:

also, in your language where most datatypes are immutable, you've got copy-on-write behind the scenes when you actually have to have a text buffer or whatever rather than a static string. one can reasonably argue that making this mostly transparent to the user is beneficial, but it isn't completely trivial; the distinction between value equality and reference equality still exists somewhere and comes up in at least some contexts

# ? Jul 25, 2014 15:06

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# ? May 26, 2024 21:32

Tiny Bug Child: Sep 11, 2004; Avoid Symmetry, Allow Complexity, Introduce Terror

lol i'm a lowly php dev and i immediately knew what (*s++ = *t++) meant. lol at elitist c people who pretend pointers are this huge intractable mystery and not a simple but hacky concept that should rarely be used

# ? Jul 25, 2014 15:30

Mr. Glass: May 1, 2009

Tiny Bug Child posted:

a simple but hacky concept that should rarely be used

haha what

# ? Jul 25, 2014 15:41

Tiny Bug Child: Sep 11, 2004; Avoid Symmetry, Allow Complexity, Introduce Terror

pointers. they're not hard to understand, it's just that there's almost always a better way to do something than use pointers.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 15:52

akadajet: Sep 14, 2003

Mr. Glass posted:

haha what

c and pointers are garbage

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:15

vapid cutlery

Apr 17, 2007

php:

<?
"it's george costanza" ?>

Tiny Bug Child posted:

lol i'm a lowly php dev and i immediately knew what (*s++ = *t++) meant. lol at elitist c people who pretend pointers are this huge intractable mystery and not a simple but hacky concept that should rarely be used

you're really suggesting that people who are C experts actually thing pointers are an "intractable mystery"? ahahahahah

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:18

vapid cutlery

Apr 17, 2007

php:

<?
"it's george costanza" ?>

i'm a C expert but this concept of pointing.. at memory... eludes me

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:18

Mr. Glass: May 1, 2009

instead of copying this 500kb struct around i am going to take its address and "point" at it

ugh what a disgusting hack

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:22

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Mr Dog posted:

treating arrays interchangeably with pointers to their first element is rather obtuse. i mean yeah it makes a lot of sense once you realise the array :2bongs: BOUNDARIES ONLY EXIST IN YOUR HEAD, MAAAAAAAAN :2bongs: but yeah it's really obtuse.

unfortunately arrays are not necessarily 100% interchangeable with pointers, they are a separate type

arrays are pointers except when they're not. and the exceptions change if you pass an array to a function

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:22

Tiny Bug Child: Sep 11, 2004; Avoid Symmetry, Allow Complexity, Introduce Terror

vapid cutlery posted:

you're really suggesting that people who are C experts actually thing pointers are an "intractable mystery"? ahahahahah

of course not you dingus. obviously they know there's nothing to it, they just treat it like a huge deal to scare off real devs

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:28

Tiny Bug Child: Sep 11, 2004; Avoid Symmetry, Allow Complexity, Introduce Terror

Mr. Glass posted:

instead of copying this 500kb struct around i am going to take its address and "point" at it

ugh what a disgusting hack

real languages automatically use pass by reference so programmers don't have to worry about it.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:29

vapid cutlery

Apr 17, 2007

php:

<?
"it's george costanza" ?>

Tiny Bug Child posted:

of course not you dingus. obviously they know there's nothing to it, they just treat it like a huge deal to scare off real devs

that is completely false. it's uninformed morons like you who hype it up

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:29

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

the "exceptions" don't "change", rather an array passed as an argument to a function decays to a pointer to its first element. this simple topic is covered in the comp.lang.c faq clearly and accurately so it's distressing to see people repeating gibberish and hoodoo about it twenty years on

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:31

vapid cutlery

Apr 17, 2007

php:

<?
"it's george costanza" ?>

Tiny Bug Child posted:

real languages automatically use pass by reference so programmers don't have to worry about it.

nah, actually they pass references by value.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:31

Mr. Glass: May 1, 2009

Tiny Bug Child posted:

real languages automatically use pass by reference so programmers don't have to worry about it.

ahahahaha i just can't with this

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:32

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

vapid cutlery posted:

nah, actually they pass references by value.

oh cool time to debate what "pass by reference" means

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:38

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

time to debate what goatse means.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:39

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

I think it means "frog golf"

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:40

Tiny Bug Child: Sep 11, 2004; Avoid Symmetry, Allow Complexity, Introduce Terror

Suspicious Dish posted:

oh cool time to debate what "pass by reference" means

pass by reference means if you give a function a thing it can change the thing and the change is visible outside the scope of that function.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:40

Symbolic Butt: Mar 22, 2009; (_!_); Buglord

Mr Dog posted:

So what you're saying is that pointers per se aren't hard, it's just that C's syntax for pointers is terrible (and it also permits wankery like the above).

I would say that if only the notion of pointers wasn't so prevalently related with how C deals with it

someone earlier in the thread said that assembly makes pointers easier to understand and I feel that she's right but I'm not sure if it's just because I'm used to C pointers now

pointer homeworks are nothing to diss

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:42

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

Pointers aren't confusing, but the myriad of custom memory layouts are, with crazy arithmetic and dynamic allocation. And they don't get less and less confusing as time goes on. It's what makes an old C codebase feel like an old C codebase.

If your only pointers to the head of a struct, then that's a lot easier of a model to teach. And from there, you can expand how you can point to specific fields in the struct, and then go into the rest of the model.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:50

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Suspicious Dish posted:

Pointers aren't confusing, but the myriad of custom memory layouts are, with crazy arithmetic and dynamic allocation. And they don't get less and less confusing as time goes on. It's what makes an old C codebase feel like an old C codebase.

If your only pointers to the head of a struct, then that's a lot easier of a model to teach. And from there, you can expand how you can point to specific fields in the struct, and then go into the rest of the model.

if you cant handle indirection you are a bad computer scientist and programmer

the essence of cs is indirection via abstraction and vice versa

# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:58

tractor fanatic: Sep 9, 2005; Pillbug

Suspicious Dish posted:

If your only pointers to the head of a struct, then that's a lot easier of a model to teach. And from there, you can expand how you can point to specific fields in the struct, and then go into the rest of the model.

I actually think C makes for a good beginners language, because it's one of the few that doesn't conflate the notion of pointer with the notion of struct although it conflates pointers and arrays.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 17:03

coffeetable: Feb 5, 2006; TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

c looks like a good first language if you consider computation to be something that's done by computers

# ? Jul 25, 2014 17:05

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

Malcolm XML posted:

if you cant handle indirection you are a bad computer scientist and programmer

the essence of cs is indirection via abstraction and vice versa

I still find systems that are over-abstracted and have too much indirection. That's the issue with a lot of "enterprise" systems -- they're too scared of sitting down and writing if (business_condition) in the code that they come up with a crazy rules systems. Look at the many "configurable" FizzBuzz tests and rules engines and all that.

Too many macros is what kills Lisp. You build such a framework in your own language that it's hard to teach and hard to debug.

A bit of indirection is OK. But these are also new students. You need to ramp it up over time. Show them the basics first.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 17:09

vapid cutlery

Apr 17, 2007

php:

<?
"it's george costanza" ?>

Suspicious Dish posted:

oh cool time to debate what "pass by reference" means

Is a debate where uninformed people give their opinions on a factual topic?

# ? Jul 25, 2014 17:16

Sapozhnik: Jan 2, 2005; Nap Ghost

ppl getting tbc'ed pretty hard itt

# ? Jul 25, 2014 17:38

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

Tiny Bug Child posted:

real languages automatically use pass by reference so programmers don't have to worry about it.

perl

# ? Jul 25, 2014 18:11

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Otto Skorzeny posted:

the "exceptions" don't "change", rather an array passed as an argument to a function decays to a pointer to its first element. this simple topic is covered in the comp.lang.c faq clearly and accurately so it's distressing to see people repeating gibberish and hoodoo about it twenty years on

this means the exceptions to normal pointer behavior are different between an array i declare myself and an array passed to me as an argument

it's not gibberish or hoodoo, it's just a stupid and pointless inconsistency

# ? Jul 25, 2014 18:50

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

the words you just said are gibberish and hoodoo; your fuzzy understanding of the subject is probably due to years of neglect from java

# ? Jul 25, 2014 18:54

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Otto Skorzeny posted:

the words you just said are gibberish and hoodoo; your fuzzy understanding of the subject is probably due to years of neglect from java

my understanding isn't fuzzy. I know exactly how this works because I have to remember these stupid details.

It's just loving stupid.

C code:

#include <stdio.h>

// -*- mode: c -*-
// 
// fucking_stupid.c
//

int main() {
  char a_real_array[12] = "C is stupid";
  printf( "Size of a real array: %d\n", sizeof( a_real_array ) );
  printf( "Size of a decayed array: %d\n", decay( a_real_array ) );
}

int decay( char dumb_array[] )
{
  return sizeof( dumb_array );
}

code:

Size of a real array: 12
Size of a decayed array: 8

When has this exception benefited anyone, anywhere? Given that an array decays to a pointer 99.9% of the time, when is the array type useful?

# ? Jul 25, 2014 19:19

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

the fact that the difference between an array type and a normal pointer is in the comp.lang.c FAQ should be an indicator that people ask about it.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 19:23

tractor fanatic: Sep 9, 2005; Pillbug

the only exception you need to remember is that [] indicates a pointer, and not an array when it appears in the parameter list. it's not an array that's decayed to a pointer, it's just a pointer.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 19:24

FamDav: Mar 29, 2008

arrays wouldnt decay to pointers if bjarne had just shown them the light of references a little earlier

# ? Jul 25, 2014 19:28

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

that's not an "exception" to anything - it's arguable that the deceptive function signature "int decay(char[])" shouldn't be legal, but the semantics are pretty clear and obvious. as for when the array type is useful, consider the case where you want to initialize a buffer with a string literal but have it be writeable later.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 19:28

b0lt: Apr 29, 2005

Tiny Bug Child posted:

php: a simple but hacky concept that should rarely be used

# ? Jul 25, 2014 20:48

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

I sit near the HHVM people who have been working on the PHP language specification we're about to publish. I don't know how they're ever sober enough to focus their eyes. They just radiate despair.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 21:08

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

lol

# ? Jul 25, 2014 21:13

Tiny Bug Child: Sep 11, 2004; Avoid Symmetry, Allow Complexity, Introduce Terror

Subjunctive posted:

I sit near the HHVM people who have been working on the PHP language specification we're about to publish. I don't know how they're ever sober enough to focus their eyes. They just radiate despair.

i assume this is because PHPNG is going to render HHVM completely obsolete (and usher in a new era of widespread PHP usage now that its one downside, poor performance, is a thing of the past)

# ? Jul 25, 2014 21:19

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# ? May 26, 2024 21:32

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

It's a PHP language specification. It has nothing to do with PHPNH nor HHVM.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 21:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > p-lang thread: (now (have you (problems two)))

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