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Are their any computer programmers on this board? This is what I am majoring in for my first two years of college.
I'm learning about AS/400 and C++ and I have a pretty solid handle on it but does anyone else have a slight clue as to what it is?
I know Bill and Sorted mess around with computers and I know Victor is a programmer and invented the board (By the way, I get the feeling Victor doesn't like me much, and I idolize him. Believe it or not we have many things in common. I also am a writer, photogropher, drawer, painter, and play billiards or "pool" as we call it here in the states)
I mainly use PHP for web-programming, I made my own forum once with a splendid search function, but it was lost to a harddisk crash... Blah.
At least here in Denmark, billiard and pool are two different games (played on the same table though, I think).
I've only tried pool.
I'm starting to learn computer programming, not C++ though I'm starting out on visual basic, but yea I mess around with computers a lot too.
I'm not a programmer, but I'm VERY familiar with AS400. I can't believe they're teaching AS400 stuff in college. It's pretty much dead in the business world. There aren't many businesses that really use AS400 anymore. It's old technology and not nearly as user friendly as the GUI stuff available today (Oracle, SAP, etc).
As for C++, are you going to have to write a program? If so, what does it need to be? C++ isn't really all that difficult, and you have to write something basic, it'll actually be much easier than you think. I know it can be intimidating, but if you relax, you'll see it really isn't all that hard.
E-mail me with whatever questions/ concerns you may have. I'll try to help you as much as I can.
Oh, and I seriously doubt Victor dislikes you. I doubt anyone on this board does.
I'm a coder/cracker :) I've been studying c++ on my own for about 3 years now, I write apps regularly :D I also know assembly which helps with cracking a ton and controlling how other apps work (mainly games). I want to study programming when I go to college, but college cost so much now that's why I just studied it on my own (started on my junior high school year :)). I'm still working on my own games written in C++ with DirectX 9, and I know winsock and everything too. So my dream of online game coding isn't far from being just a dream anymore :D
Wow thats impressive stuff! How are you learning all that crazy stuff? Do you have a book (can you name them if you do please) or off the net? (Again could you send me links to the sites/forums you go on- thx)
Im only learning for fun really, but I'd love to make a basic 3D game at some point! How much time do you spend each night to get to that level so quickly!?
~Gaz
books are great resources, between books MSDN and gamedev.net i've learned everything I know upto this point. MSDN is microsoft developers network, just an invaluable resource to any programmer :) Each night I probably spend a few hours, I used to stay up all night coding sometimes, it's just so enjoyable :P Right now i'm working on some basic demos to fine tune my skills before I dive into a final project. Anyways here's a list of the books i've read if you are interested:
Learn c++ in 21 days
Game Programming All In One
Game Programming in 24 hours
Teach yourself Game programming with DirectX in 21 days
I learned something valuable from all of them, my favorite resource right now though is game programming all in one, it really covers alot of ground. I got my eyes on this other book I forget the name, it really goes into 3d stuff, but its like $80 heh. The DirectX that's taught in the above books is for DX8 but once you get a grasp on that DX9 is just changing a few functions and the way you do stuff. It does take alot of time to learn this stuff though, I mean if you are learning right (or at least like I did) you wont even make a window for a week or two. First you have to learn c++ before you can get into windows programming, gotta get into functions, classes, loops, inheritence, pointers. It's a very fun hobby that I hope to make into a career :D
Thanks for the reply,
I have made a note of those books and websites:-) I have been letting my programming time slip by the wayside recently, but I have decided to take it more seriously now, becasuse I know that it is something worth while. Im studying Physics at Uni this year so I hope to incoroprate programming with this in a future career!
Cheers again, and good luck with your project. I will be interested to see it!
~Gaz
I've been coding CGI for the past two years or so.
It works with PERL.
C, all the way baby. Kernel programming too. If you can't bring down the entire system, where's the fun? :)
I'm a programmer!
Well, not officially, I'm starting my second year of college in a few weeks, but I've been programming in C++ for about 4 years now, Java for about 2 and I have experience in visual basic, Pascal and C#. I just finished up a reasearch internship writing some graphical experiment simulation windows programs in the win32 API for a nanotechnology firm in upstate New York. Hopefully I'll be doing a 6 month internship with them next year...
Hey there dude :-)
I have recently started to learn c++ from a teach yourself book! Im only on page 42 at the mo, and am learning about different operators (conditional, sizeof etc).
Its fun when I complile the programme and it comes up in DOS ( like enter two numbers and it says which ones is bigger...) But I cant see how this is going to be useful in the long term? How do you make windows programmes and games if they come out in DOS? Can this be done with c++ or do you have to do it in visual c++? LOL a proper newbie question Im sure!
cout << "Thanks, " << endl << "~Gaz" << endl; (lol)
I've been a professional programmer since I graduated college (10 years ago). I have programmed professionally in COBOL, c, c++, php, and Perl (though mostly Perl lately) on OS/390, unix (solaris, linux, hpux) and a little windows. I think its a lot more important to learn how to program (algorithms, datastructures, programming concepts) than to learn any one particular language. Languages and OSes come and go, but if you can apply to your knowledge to whatever happens to be the "flavor of the day" you'll be better prepared as technology changes.
FYI, I started out programming with short hair but started growing it out again (I had long hair in college) about 4 years ago and now its mid-back length.
L
AS400? Aren't those Mainframe Servers?
C++ is a compiled ob ject Orientated Programming language. I never really studied it, I did Java & Visual Basic instead. These day I do what little coding I have to in VBScript using Active Server Pages.
If you want some advice, focus your attention on programming distributed systems, things that will work well on web servers, the internet or mobile technoliges. Clients are increasing demanding distributed applications, the age of standalone desktop computing is dead, and large networks are taking advantage of the compatibility and inexpensive support of TCP/IP technologies for most of their IT needs.
AS400 is actually a different type of operating system aside from the point and click world of windows. It invloves putting in commands and junk like that and is designed by IBM and I think they call it I Series or something like that.
No help there, huh. No worries mate ;)
Hey, I just do what they sign me up for...
Ahh.. right, I've never used it... can't ever see why I would either not my line of work...
Not much mate... I went down a different line.
You'll get options soon enough, flexibility is always fun.
Uh, pardon me, what is it you want to know? I don't understand it from your sentence..
-vincent
I am in the wrapping-up stages of a medium-sized Microsoft MFC-based project. As a result I have been writing writing C++ almost every day for the past nine months. It's a good language for projects that *begin* with a well-developed, rock-solid design. In my opinion it is the worst possible language for systems that are developed 'at the tube'. I am not an OS or language snob. I am happy to use whatever tool is suited to the goals of the system. I've seen the decision to use one OS over another come down to the per-unit licensing cost. In the 1990s I spent three years designing software for telephone switches. There it was about 50% assembly language and 50% C. No C++ at all. It was *extremely* difficult for me to hire a new graduate who wanted to work in assembly language. Pity. I always found working down at the chip level to be very satisfying but today's graduates all want to work with GUIs and Java.
Some advice about learning C++. The book "The C++ Programming Language (Special Edition)" by Bjarne Stroustrup (Addison Wesley, 2000) has a section "Design Using C++". This is some of the best and most authoritative "how to" exposition I've ever read. ob ject oriented programming is different from other types of programming. It requires a very different design and program structure from that of procedural programming. A great way to get a grip on the ob ject-oriented way of software design is to study "design patterns". The standard reference "Design Patterns" by Erich Gamma, et al (Addison Wesley, 1995) is a little dry but it covers all the fundamental patterns. If you can understand how to use patterns, you will be well on the road to mastering ob ject-oriented design and will be able to make full use of the power of C++.
Good luck in your studies!
I've been programming since late 1970s. Programming is an extremely useful skill to have, and it can be fun!
To go the Windows route, get a copy of MS Visual Studio. Microsoft offers a generous academic discount, but of course that's to get students hooked on Microsoft software (not necessarily a bad thing from an employability viewpoint).
You can also go the Linux/gcc route. This may be beneficial if you like to tinker with the OS.
I'd avoid things specific to the AS/400. There's not much demand for AS/400 programmers.
Good luck!
Ed
