[cumbria_lug] New distro advice

[Steve Turner]

At 13:35 10/02/2004, you wrote:
>trevor at haven.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>>Yeah, next week's question will be "which programming language should I 
>>>use?" :-) I did hope that the fact that people know each other, and even 
>>>occasionally meet face-to-face would prevent a flame war.
>>
>>Regretably experiance would suggest otherwise.
>
>Oh well. Maybe I was just being naieve ;-) Still, I don't think I've been 
>in a flame war, yet. Although I did once, against better judgement, reply 
>to a post at uni along the lines of "Is VB better than C/C++?"
>
>Russ


I always though the language wars where fun for finding out who where the 
fanatical zealots...  I could always suggest fortran to get things 
rolling...  but this would only be a reference to the "Real Programmers 
use... " semi-serious texts which have been wandering the net for twenty 
years or so, still a good read even now.  On the subject,  the "Tao of 
Programming" is good read as well.

Personally, I think every language has it's purpose, benefits, problems, 
etc, and it depends what your actually developing which is important (and 
on what platform) that should influence the choice of language.  Using VB 
as an example, I'd never consider it for a device driver, but would for a 
desktop application.

At the other end though...  if you've any fantasies about being in 
management (ie. a PHB [re. Dilbert.com]), then I'd recommend a lobotomy and 
learning the 'other' C language, the one who's name should on no account be 
uttered... (clue...  C???L)  [and that's not an invitation for anyone to 
say it either!!! - although someone probably will just to get me going]


----------
Steve

http://alcor.concordia.ca/~smw/home/real_programmers.html

http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/index.html

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/The10.html