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Admin
Not to mention C++ uses != when it means <>. C++ must suck.
Admin
--NEVER-- post anything like that again, there has to be a law against it somwhere, there HAS to be. (shudder)
Admin
Don't feed the trolls... don't feed the trolls... don't feed...
Admin
So I guess this means I don't get the job?
Admin
perl -we 'print pack "(B*)*" , split / /, "01000100 01101001 01110011 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100010 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00111111 00100000 01000001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01010000 01100101 01110010 01101100 00101101 01100110 01110101 00101100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100111 00100000 01010000 01100001 01100100 01100001 01110111 01100001 01101110 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001010";'
Admin
Admin
Yes and no. I find that naming _every_ control on a form is useful in the long run when maintenance hits you. When you first desing the form, a lot of controls aren't used in code, but later you will start using them. I find it a lot easier to pick up an old form (or someone else's form) and start adding new code if all the controls are named properly to begin with. Saves me time, makes me more efficient, and it's just the mark of a lazy programmer...
Heh that's funny. What exactly does = mean in VB? Assignment, equality, what is it?
-shnar
Admin
This is the problem when crossing languages, something that might work well in one language may not be the best way to do in another language. For *visual* controls in Delphi, it's a *lot* easier to simply have the one event handler that's called by the many different controls (Delphi allows you to have one event handler assigned to many different controls of different types even).
-shnar
Admin
Admin
There are some arguments to be made against this statement, actually. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html
The results of Joel's research indicate that the quality of code and the amount of time spent on it are completely uncorrelated. Incompetent developers will simply never throw together an elegant solution, no matter how much time they put into it. Just like some people fundamentally don't understand pointers, and never will.
On the plus side, for today's examples, these are - in at least one sense - not WTFs. By being so blatantly bad, they make it very easy for the interviewer to say "No Hire!" and move on to the next candidate. What's so bad about that?
Admin
Admin
!= means not equal to; <> means less than or greater than. These are not always the same. Consider complex numbers which do not have less than or greater than. With them != is legitimate, and <> is undefined.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Admin
All I know is that I had to translate between C++ and Delphi for some of my projects and most of the work invovled just changing the syntax. Unless specific libraries were referenced, this was generally a very simple process. Probably would have been the same for Java or C# as well. Every concept I use in my dailing programming was included in both languages when I worked with them. The only thing we could do in C/C++ that we couldn't do in Delphi was to write a device driver for Windows NT.
I was also factoring into my thinking that when looking at Delphi and C++ Builder, the two products were almost identical (even using the same VCL I believe) I think that would have have been very difficult to manage if there were drastic differences between the capabilities of object pascal and C.
Admin
Should be C++, there, obviously.
Admin
In my exprience, there are plenty of people with SOME "Delphi knowledge" (depending on your definition of "knowledge") who don't get this at all. I know, I've worked with them. And then there are some who get that you CAN do this, but don't really have any idea why they'd ever want to. It's just so much simpler to click the form (or the object inspector if you absolutely must) and let it create a method for you. None of this picking a method that already exists nonsense- that's just too complicated.
I'm not disagreeing with you here, but it is amazing how many people can figure out the basics of a tool like Delphi and still have no idea how to use it. Sometimes you're just giving them more rope . . .
Admin
I've been enjoying some of the witty comments in this forum for a while now, and I've noticed that a lot of the folks that authored the code that was submitted seem to be the type of folks who would say something a friend of mine once wise-cracked to me:
"Grog no understand complicated computer thingy - just wanna count toes, pick toes, pick nose"
Admin
Just the opposite. Delphi "lovers" have been frustrated for years seeing the profits of Delphi not being reinvested into Delphi, but rather going to fund one of Borland's pet projects such as Inprise, Visibroker, ALM junk, etc. If Delphi would put just 10% of their profits into marketing, you'd see a much larger marketshare. I mean, when was the last time you saw an add that said "1 source, 3 platforms (Linux, Win32, DotNet), all with Delphi" or something like, "Backwards compatible since 1995" (as has been mentioned on this board already).
At any rate, Delphi is alive and well, ver2006 just barely came out and the beta for 2007 is active. Delphi "lovers" are excited that the tool they love is being moved into a company that will hopefully love it as much as they do.
-shnar
Admin
A favorite quote of mine is from Albert Einstein:
"you should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler."
Pascal, and even more so it's derivative Delphi, try to avoid unnecessary complexity, and most of the time don't lose expressiveness in the process. This lowers the barrier to entry to technical people who are not exclusively programmers. ( Economists, Engineers, Physicists, etc ). Frequently, this results in better code, since the code can be written by the person who understands the what the code is needed to do.
Of course, to write good code, you need to have a logical mind. You also have to value clarity and simplicity, which the interviewees obviously did not.
There are many examples of very well written Delphi code, which is far easier to study and learn from than C++ or java, due to it's compact syntax.
http://www.delphi-gems.com/
Admin
Actualy VB is not a perfectly good language.
Yes VB is a language.
Yes you can do a lot with it.
No it is not a perfectly good language. It is several flaws in it. Some flaws make it very difficult to write code in the language.
I'm not saying don't use VB, I'm just pointing out the flaw in your argument
Admin
I fear you're wrong about the future of Delphi, but I hope you're right. I completely agree with the assessment about how much better Delphi would have done had Borland continued to push it, but unless someone with deep pockets (like Oracle) buys the product, it's going to be difficult getting users and companies to trust it as a long term solution. And if Oracle was to buy it, heaven help us all!
My company actually purchased the 2006 version of their C# product because we were considering using ECO for a new project and wanted to evaluate it. The DAY after we received our copy Borland made the announcement, effectively ending our trial. No way was my company going to commit to a product with such an unclear future, and I can't say I blame them.
I agree that it would be great if a company would by the tools and make it work. I'm skeptical that there is anyone out there with both the interest and deep enough pockets to do it.
Admin
Hmmm... You're in a vast minority. Most Delphi programmers I know are really pleased with the direction being taken
with Delphi (myself included).
Admin
Funny you should say that because in my Advanced Compiler Building course we did examine this optimization technique.
Granted, the designers of C did not put any provisions into the language to make tail recursion easy for the compiler, so the principle 'when in doubt, don't optimize' applies. But that doesn't mean it isn't done, instead it depends on how clever a compiler's developers were.