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#1 2008-09-29 15:49:38

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Psst. Yes, this message is long, but so are my requirements. Please take the extra few seconds to read it wink

First it was QBasic, then QuickBasic, then, of all things, Visual Basic... version 1.0. On Win98. Then XP.

I made a lot of stuff with VB. 500 doesn't give a very good indication of how many things I made with VB 1.0, but I remember having more items than that in my c:\vbwin folder. VB might not look all that great visually, but it had a few things I've not found in any other language/environment, namely simplicity, freedom of use, speed, flexibility, hackability, and speed. Definately speed. It wasn't great on memory usage however - after my projects started creating 80KB binaries, VB would start to get crashy. tongue

But VB had simplicity because it didn't use the 2873598734-options 997341234-properties 897592873562874353469582743-functions mantra of VB 6.0 nor the 9-billion-of-everything mantra of .net. I could whip up an application in that environment within seconds - indeed, I became quite a master at configuring some defaults I liked for forms and adding a hidden button that responded to the ESC key in about 7 seconds. It had freedom of use because... I could do anything with it. I could, because I was just that patient enough, use 234 perfectly aligned pictureboxes to create "the Win95 look" in a program designed to work on Windows 3.1 (yes, VB 1.0 is 16-bit lol), and VB had speed because those 234 pictureboxes appeared on my running program's form when I hit F5 faster than I could blink. It had flexibility because I could shove 12MB of BMPs into my EXE and it'd run fine. It had hackability because I could import the Win16 API and work around issues in the language itself to make my applications what I wanted them to be. Did I mention the speed? Well, it was copyrighted in 1991, so was written in the good old days of the 16MHz 486!

However, all that fun was, sadly, from a while ago. Like, 8 months ago or so, probably more.

What marked the end of that period was a conversation on IRC one day: someone gave me a 5-or-so line snippet of code in PHP. It wasn't very complicated, but it showed a clean solution to something I needed to do with web development, which I was just getting into at the time - I can't really remember what the actual issue was, but I do remember that my choices were either to use the code snippet, or go through some looong complex process to complete whatever it was I wanted to do manually.

The code didn't look too scary, so I installed PHP and gave it a whirl. And I've liked, used, and abused PHP for many months following that initial "well maybe this isn't so bad". I don't mind PHP's use of 14 functions or more/less to do the same thing, or the fact that PHP isn't multithreaded. I probably wouldn't take advantage of multithreading in my code for a long time anyway, and PHP does have pcntl_fork() if I want to do two things at once in a controlled way.

However... I'm starting to outgrow PHP, and I'm a bit homesick of VB's visual ease of use as well. I want an environment that lets me drag'n'drop a picturebox onto a form, shove a pile of pictureboxes inside of it, then programmatically manage them all. Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing I'd do with VB 1.0, and what do you know, I created something good from it - a simple but very usable media center-ish user interface complete with animation and it all ran fast on the PC I was using, a Pentium 3 clocked at 450MHz, with only 128MB RAM.

Yes, PHP-GTK, PHP-QT and PHP-TK do exist, and they've all failed on my system at various points: PHP-GTK compiles and works absolutely fine, but breaks PHP-CGI. PHP-QT won't compile on my system, and its compile process is just too hard to tweak so I can't try gcc-3.4 on it. And anything involving PHP-TK that doesn't amount to creating a single, empty, lifeless window titled "PHP/TK" produces warnings or segfaults.

So I'm looking for a programming language that gives me something comparable or equal to what VB 1.0 had - a visual drag'n'drop development environment that didn't visually overwhelm, compilation, and speed, and what PHP has - simplicity, readability, and bindings to/for everything that isn't desktop application development, without the VB syntax format. I'm past VB, and about to surpass PHP.

Possible candidates for a new language are pretty much anything that includes both a compiler and interpreter, looks and feels like PHP, has nothing PHP doesn't have, but offers more power by using more functions, not weird, non-C-like ASCII character soup. So, if you were to take the PHP parsing engine and couple that with a bunch of libraries that adds sane stuff like native window support, the ability to manage boxes and squares in code, and so on. OR anything equivalent. So if something had ability XYZ which I couldn't figure out how to use, but also let me complete goal ABC while *not* using XYZ, it meets my requirements. And if something has just an compiler, you'll have a bit of a hard time convincing me to like it, but if it only has an interpreter, you'll really need to sell it to me, since I'm starting to get the compilation bug again, just like I did 7-8 years ago when I gazed at the wonder that was the EXE and wanted so badly to create my own.

Also, before you list Perl, let me stop you: Perl has too many unreadabilities. "test ? abc : def" is about as far as I'm prepared to go; I far prefer English text over regular expressions, Awk and the like. Also, C is just too much. It is, probably unsurprisingly considering what you've just read, too cool for my artistic brain. I don't want a language that can do everything: I get inspired by difficulty, not being able to do whatever I want. Yes, that's how my brain works, and I need to go with the flow, not against it, so simply because C can do absolutely anything and everything, I can't use it. cool

I will, however, note that I also like the Bash language, and the way it works, if only it wasn't so slow!

So, to sum up, the best things I've written include a media center user interface in a language that's 17 years old (same age as me! big_smile), a telnet server using PHP (I wrote the RFC-compliant telnet parser myself, from scratch), and lastly a textual taskbar, an IRC client, and some animations using Bash.

I want a language that is readable and doesn't try to extend or expound on its own using syntax but lets me do the thinking my own way, so I have nothing stopping me from using it for what it wasn't used for. Because isn't that what we all do with programming languages anyway?

-dav7


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#2 2008-09-29 16:05:33

peets
Member
From: Montreal
Registered: 2007-01-11
Posts: 936
Website

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Etoys? I like Perl myself, but have never ever tried anything visual.

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#3 2008-09-29 16:13:13

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Right. That's... a bit... too visual.

-dav7


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#4 2008-09-29 16:28:58

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Why insist on visual ? Writing and compiling code isn't something you should be afraid of.
You surely have what it takes, just start typing man wink
You could start off with python or pearl or dive straight into c/c++.

Might I suggest that you instead start with Java and an IDE for it ? That's right, try Netbeans or Eclipse.
I haven't used Eclipse actually but I've used Netbeans with Java and it sure is easy to create those GUIs with it. (Now, please don't comment on the actual code it generates)

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-09-29 16:33:50)


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#5 2008-09-29 16:34:52

lucke
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Ruby is mightily readable, very flexible, has many GUI-libs bindings and is just a pleasure to use for me. There's Rubinius and perhaps other projects if you don't want the default interpreter.

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#6 2008-09-29 18:53:14

ornitorrincos
Forum Fellow
From: Bilbao, spain
Registered: 2006-11-20
Posts: 198

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Python?
it has a very readable code
AnywayI have only programmed in Python, C and Bash with a small attempt with PHP which resulted in hating it.


-$: file /dev/zero
/dev/zero: symbolic link to '/dev/brain'

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#7 2008-09-29 20:32:15

ezzetabi
Member
Registered: 2006-08-27
Posts: 947

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

marketing?

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#8 2008-09-29 22:14:33

scj
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2007-09-23
Posts: 158

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

dav7 wrote:

Psst.
I want a language that is readable and doesn't try to extend or expound on its own using syntax but lets me do the thinking my own way, so I have nothing stopping me from using it for what it wasn't used for. Because isn't that what we all do with programming languages anyway?

Common Lisp?

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#9 2008-09-29 23:12:35

burnside
Member
From: Asheville, NC
Registered: 2008-09-27
Posts: 45

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Ruby or Python are probably your best bets.

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#10 2008-09-30 00:44:32

freakcode
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From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2007-11-03
Posts: 410
Website

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

I'm quite the opposite, because I hate anything that *is* PHP smile

It gets stuff done, fair enough. But, man, it's ugly... I don't know any other language in the universe more inconsistent than it. I'm wondered that you praised PHP syntax "simplicity and readability".

So, I guess your problem is that you're stuck with languages that were born from ugly hacks.

You should try languages born with strong paradigms, like Python, Ruby, LISP... hell, even C or Java would be cool. The wider your experience with different languages and paradigms, the better programmer you'll be. You can do GUI with most of this stuff, just choose your Toolkit/Bindings. If you want GUI as in VB RAD... well, you better go get a Java IDE to create GUIs with Swing, it's the closest you get.

In the end, it's not a matter of what languages are suited for programmers, but what programmers are suited for languages.

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#11 2008-09-30 03:42:29

carlocci
Member
From: Padova - Italy
Registered: 2008-02-12
Posts: 368

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

bash is the only answer


On a serious note I suggest a dive into python as well, even if I'm quite a beginner at programming.

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#12 2008-09-30 04:51:38

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Hmm. I see. It's been interesting; I've been wondering if C really is all that hard... maybe I just need to work at it and not give up until I understand something... after all, I don't need to learn about PHP, QT, TK, OpenGL, math, pointers, audio, animation, and everything else all at once...

I also recently remembered Clutter (I actually remembered "chaos" and had to use a thesaurus to remember it big_smile), something that is likely going to be the closest match for VB 1.0's programmatical management of pictureboxes. And then, when checking the page a few moments ago to re-familiarize myself with the project, I noticed that it had "bindings for... Vala". Hm, what's that? Turns out it's a C#-ish compiler licensed under the LGPL that generates C code (not bytecode or anything stupid like that) and that it's designed for the "GObject type system", whatever that is. Not sure if I should give that a go or not.

At any rate, I definitely feel like learning a new language right now, so might dive into C or maybe even assembly. I just think it's the right time. When I said

dav7 wrote:

Also, C is just too much. It is, probably unsurprisingly considering what you've just read, too cool for my artistic brain. I don't want a language that can do everything: I get inspired by difficulty, not being able to do whatever I want. Yes, that's how my brain works, and I need to go with the flow, not against it, so simply because C can do absolutely anything and everything, I can't use it. cool

something occurred to me - I don't need to worry if C can do more than I can. I can simply learn it. For someone who's seen C as frustrating for many months (even possibly years) this is a gigantic leap for me wink

I do wish there were more knowledgeable people out there with a bit of time to spare though, since while I find learning from other people in real time (whether over the 'Net or face-to-face) my fastest knowledge uptake method, yet crowds (read: school or college environment) sends my brain into a distressed spin. Ah well.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-09-30 04:52:25)


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#13 2008-09-30 05:07:35

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Hm, turns out clutter won't work on my system for whatever reason. It is in the repos, but when I first tried to compile a simple Pong game, it complained that it couldn't find clutter/clutter.h. A poke inside /usr/include revealed that it got installed into /usr/include/clutter-0.8/clutter/ - huh O.o - and so upon symlinking /usr/include/clutter-0.8/clutter/ to /usr/include/clutter/ gcc threw about 4 million MORE errors. I tried gcc-3.4, but that didn't do anything either.

One of the really bad things with C and myself is that when I encounter errors, I don't know enough to do more than go "buh!" sad

So it looks like Clutter is out.

-dav7


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#14 2008-09-30 06:25:46

robmaloy
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2008-05-14
Posts: 263

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

if you can do without a compiler, try python

- VERY readable code
- VERY flexible
- debugging is really easy
- no need to care for data types
- lots of bindings and frameworks available (GUI stuff, pygame, etc etc)
- the interpreter can be used in interactive mode, really nice if you quickly want to test 4-5 lines of code

plus maybe many many more, but i'm not that much of a coder so i'm not really able to tell


for GUI stuff you can always use sth. like Glade, the interfaces you create can even be used for other applications and/or other languages


☃ Snowman ☃

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#15 2008-09-30 06:29:02

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Hmm.

I don't know anymore. I both think I'm ready to face low-level programming, but fall over when I encounter a tiny C error. Ah well, I guess I'll see how this pans out. I don't want to deviate from the "C style" of using function() {...} like I did with PHP, so it looks like C is it. I'm not sure though yet. Is there anything out there that uses function() {...} syntax that isn't PHP, a C derivative, or Perl? big_smile

-dav7


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#16 2008-09-30 07:10:49

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Tried python yet?

And.... yeah.... google. You've probably heard of all the popular, languages -- just try them out, we can't tell you what you'll like.

James

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#17 2008-09-30 11:01:24

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Just one thing: Don't try Haskell yet big_smile


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#18 2008-09-30 11:12:49

Ruckus
Member
Registered: 2007-02-17
Posts: 204

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

dav7 wrote:

Hmm.

I don't know anymore. I both think I'm ready to face low-level programming, but fall over when I encounter a tiny C error. Ah well, I guess I'll see how this pans out. I don't want to deviate from the "C style" of using function() {...} like I did with PHP, so it looks like C is it. I'm not sure though yet. Is there anything out there that uses function() {...} syntax that isn't PHP, a C derivative, or Perl? big_smile

-dav7

Theres always Java, most people hate it though. I like it personally.

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#19 2008-09-30 11:43:33

robertp
Member
From: Warszawa, Poland
Registered: 2007-09-11
Posts: 123

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

Here is a list of common programming languages that may be suitable for you:

* C/C++ - very powerfull but also quite difficult and it's easy to make an error
* Java - very popular, C++ like syntax
* C# - also very popular, similar to Java
* Python - scripting language, very readable and easy, good for start but  also for big projects
* Ruby - very popular for www programming, don't know much about it
* D - not very popular, similar to C++ but has garbage colector, worth try

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#20 2008-09-30 16:35:18

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

A bit of an update.

C/C++/C#: Interesting. May try except C#.
Java: I have absolutely nothing against Java itself, I just have this big thing with using virtual machines and bytecode for/in/with programming languages.
Python/Ruby: I don't know about these, I might give up and just give these a try.
D: I've heard about D, and looked at it. Its compiler isn't under a GNU license, and its syntax is a bit much for me, sooo...
Haskell: nonononono tongue
Lisp: I've looked at this one many times. Once I got a little interested but but mostly I get this icky feeling when I look at it.

So, I am, of all things, writing what I think would be a good language. Well, more accurately, I'm writing a theoretical source file for this language, and will post it when I consider it good enough to show to the world, complete with comments. big_smile

Edit: Ohai robertp, I [finally] remember you!

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-09-30 16:43:17)


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#21 2008-09-30 18:20:18

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

As promised...

A little simple at the moment, but it's the result of a dream... to create The Perfect Language. I just may end up calling it TPL if it works out. big_smile

; dav7's view of what The Perfect Language is
; Licensed under the Nonexistant Public License (NPL) - "do w/e you want w/ it, just give me a bit of credit."
; 30-sep-08 - ?-oct-08
; <dav7@dav7.net>
;
; /me invents comment blocks so he doesn't have to keep typing ;s
;;
There. :D

Now, the problem with most common programming languages (I'm looking at you, C) is that they
- are rather unreadable
- are really hard to work with for the unknowledgable
- impose a 32768-second wait on the impatient, ADHD-infused programmer as the code file(s) compile for the
  247th time
- involve a lot of typing, some of it needing to be a specific case (CAPS or lowercase)
- requires a lot of input to get something basic functional, and has a very high initial code to output
  ratio: at the beginning of a project a high percentage of code is required to get a reasonable amount of
  output, and only after there is a fairly decent amount of code present will the code / output ratio
  decrease so that only a relatively small amount of code is needed to produce the application-specific
  output desired
- is not natively very image-oriented - to display an image in a window without 5GB of libraries, I need to
  know Xlib, how to decode PNGs and how to manage double-buffering


So, I want to create a language that

- is both readable AND easy to type. No, I'm not going to do a survey of what word groups are the easiest
for the eye to pick up on, or go anywhere near that extreme; rather, my language will have two "modes".
One is amazingly quick to type, and the other, while relatively minimalistic, actually uses ASCII characters
to denote function, data and flow, and my compiler/interpreter combo will have a converter that will pass
through and convert a code file from one "syntax mode" to the other.
- can be both interpreted or emitted, depending on the situation ("emitted" here means that instead of working on
  something that can generate native code for 784598754 platforms myself, I'll just output C-- code or something)
- has bindings for X
- makes it very easy to debug a program

From a result-, goal- or solution-based person like myself, I don't see language design the way most others would.
I don't value a language based on its algorithmic efficiency, I value it based on ease of use. I don't see things
from a procedural perspective, but rather a tokenized object oriented tree of constructs that I must feed to the
computter to achieve the result I want. This language adheres to that principle.

So, let's get started with this new language. As I go along, I explain points of interest / trivia about whatever
I'm referring to.
;;


; The ubiquitous "Hello World". To print something, you encase it with single or double quotes and don't assign
; any meaning to it by telling the language to set the string to a variable or test it against something. A
newline is automatically added at the end of a line of such output produced by quoting.
"Hello world!"


; variable assignment by usage. There's no "true" or "false" here. Everything uses plain, un-expounded (in that 0
won't mean false or 1 true) integers to represent state or status.
x = 1


; if/then - the '? var : abc : def' construct compares 'var', and if 'var' is 1, it executes 'abc', otherwise it
; executes 'def'. This'll print "x = 1!". This construct could be used to do anything - I'd want it to operate
; as much like the C preprocessor as possible.
? x = 1: "x = 1!" : "x = 0!"

; the previous line could also be written as:
? x: "x = 1!" : "x = 0!"

; or even:
"'x' is equal to $x, which would equal"; ? x: "TRUE" : "FALSE"; "in a lot of other programming languages."


; calling a procedure. See the procedure declaration below for more info.
test x

; a loop. Loops start with a '[' and end with a ']'. This language doesn't have any for or while loops - you
; construct those on your own.
[ ;; this demos both nested comment blocks, and the fact that I stole C's add-1 method -> ;; x++
    
    ; the ! operator breaks out of a loop. I might change this.
    ? x > 5: !
    
    ; Print the current index, up to 5. Using a $ next to a known variable name in a quoted string will
    ; print that variable's contents.
    "$x"
    
]

; Now for a for-esque loop - very similar to the previous example. Note that at the beginning of the block, a
; semicolon isn't required to denote its seperation of the pre- or proceeding code behind and in front of it.
z = 0 [ z++; ? z > 10: !
    
    "$z"
    
]

; procedure start. No definition of the function or parameters is required - variables are accessible inside
; the function as 'a', 'b', 'c', etc. When 'z' is reached the next variable is indexed as 'aa', then the next
; as 'ab', etc. Also, functions can be defined after they're called - the parser will have the entire program
; in memory before it executes a single line of it, and the compiler will likewise parse the entire program
; before outputting any C.
test:
    
    ; Yes, it looks like I have the quotes wrong, but I don't. This language allows for Bash-style
    ; variable-string combination ;)
    "ohai from teh procedure! You passed "$a"!"
    
    ; procedure end. Note that I start with "proc:" and end with ":proc" - this makes it very easy to see
    ; what function I might be seeing the end of if it's long and I can see any function starts.
:test

; Now for everything demoed here as a one-liner.

"Hello world!"; x = 1; ? x: "x = 1!" : "x = 0!"; "'x' is equal to $x, which would equal"; ? x: "TRUE" : "FALSE"; "in a lot of other programming languages."; test; [ ? x > 5: !; "$x" ] z = 0 [ z++; ? z > 10: !; "$z" ] test: "ohai from teh procedure!" :test


; And now for everything in its slightly more readable form...

"Hello world!"

x = 1

if x = 1 then "x = 1!" else "x = 0!"

if x then "x = 1!" else "x = 0!"

"'x' is equal to $x, which would equal"; if x then "TRUE" else "FALSE"; "in a lot of other programming languages."

test


[ x++
    
    if x is greater than 5 then break
    ; OR
    ; if x > 5 then break
    
    "$x"
    
]

z = 0 [ z++; if z > 10 then !
    
    "$z"
    
]

test:
    
    "ohai from teh procedure!"
    
:test

; And now for this version as its oneliner:

"Hello world!"; x = 1; if x then "x = 1!" else "x = 0!"; "'x' is equal to $x, which would equal"; ? x: "TRUE" : "FALSE"; "in a lot of other programming languages."; test; [ if x is greather than 5 then break; "$x" ] z = 0 [ z++; if z > 10 then break; "$z" ] test: "ohai from teh procedure!" :test

That's about it. big_smile

What do you think?

What language has the closest syntax as mine?

Is this language viable? Could it survive actually being developed? hmm

Please do let me know your opinions/comments/suggestions/flames. tongue

-dav7


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#22 2008-09-30 19:34:53

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

The reason I suggested java to you is because of the ease of making GUIs (which is what you wanted, no ? ).
And it's syntax resembles c++ quite a lot so it's a nice intro to that.


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#23 2008-09-30 21:44:04

kett
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 104

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

As far as GUI stuff is concerned, as mentioned, Java has great GUI creation tools (Netbeans and Eclipse) that are very easy.  Netbeans even automatically writes some basic code for you when placing items (or at least it used to), so if you truly want an easy GUI design process I'd say Java is the best.

If that's not your primary concern and simplicity/readability of language is key, as with others, I'd say Python or Ruby.  Between those two, I personally would take Ruby any day of the week, as I like the syntax much better.  That said, if you're making desktop apps, I believe that Python has more resources in that area.  However, there's JRuby, which is an interpreter for Ruby built on Java, so I'm sure you could make java GUI's while writing code in Ruby.

Just my two cents.

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#24 2008-09-30 22:54:01

catwell
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From: Bretagne, France
Registered: 2008-02-20
Posts: 207
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Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

dav7, I like some of your ideas, such as the way you handle loops, but isn't using ; both as a line-end character in the one-liner and in comments dangerous ?

Also, I think there already is something that's close to a "perfect" language in theory (but its implementation is not mature enough yet) : http://www.iolanguage.com/.

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#25 2008-10-01 02:39:44

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: What language would suit someone who hates anything that isn't PHP?

moljac024, kett: No, it isn't entirely GUI manufacture. The reason I liked VB 1.0 was because I could put pictureboxes on the form, give them no border, and give them the same color as the background they're on (or picture, or whatever), and then I could programmatically manage those pictureboxes in code - I could even move them around in a manner akin to animation, and it worked perfectly (despite being a huge hack) because VB 1.0 was so fast. That's what I'm looking for, and I think I'd need to write code that lets me do that myself, since it just doesn't exist.

kett: I've been reading about Ruby now and again, and I guess I'll have to give it a go. Ruby also has Shoes which lets me do the kinds of things VB 1.0 let me do (albeit not in a drag'n'drop way) but I wouldn't be surprised if I tried to convince Shoes to move boxes or whatever around a form and it stuttered all over the place.

catwell: Thanks big_smile and ...MEEP, I didn't realize :S

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-10-01 02:40:22)


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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