I want to rip my hair out over this stupid language

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Padium
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10 Feb 2009, 5:44 pm

Why are the profs making us use scheme for first year courses???

I am running into an error that should not happen, and is an error in the language itself... The profs don't understand the error, because they are assuming the language is flawless. The only thing helping me keep my sanity working with this is the fact that I do not have to use that function and I can just remove it from my code. I am ready to rip this thing apart... Worst part is I am not yet done the assignment, so I have to keep working...

Scheme is a programming language, and I am talking about computer science for those of you that do not know, and this isn't about computer, but my frustration.



2ukenkerl
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10 Feb 2009, 7:10 pm

At least YOU probably have a decent editor! *I* first programmed LISP with a TEXT editor. They are IDIOTS for teaching you a language that is unlike most, and not widely used. But HEY, it IS used in EMACS(the second most popular UNIX text editor)!

FRANKLY, Fortran, and COBOL are traditional. I HATE the idea of EITHER, as they aren't widely used and are not THAT popular anymore. Basic is just SO SO, but is basically GONE now! MS GUTTED it, twisted it, and added GUI functionality. C/C++ is nice, but it can be hard for a first language. FORGET PL1, PILOT, RPG, and LOGO! JAVA teaches and reenforces BAD HABITS!
So why do I mention the above(outside of C/C++)? They have ALL been used to teach programming!

If it were up to me, I would start with PASCAL!(ALL the benefits of basic, but with the structure to enforce GOOD HABITS) You can THEN go to C/C++(Practically the mother of all else). You can THEN go to VB(With the understanding that calling VB basic is like calling German Dutch!), the easiest commercial language from a viable company.



kittenmeow
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10 Feb 2009, 7:12 pm

Can relate. Used to rip out hair over algebra and the rules that did not make sense.



Padium
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10 Feb 2009, 7:32 pm

2ukenkerl wrote:
At least YOU probably have a decent editor! *I* first programmed LISP with a TEXT editor. They are IDIOTS for teaching you a language that is unlike most, and not widely used. But HEY, it IS used in EMACS(the second most popular UNIX text editor)!

FRANKLY, Fortran, and COBOL are traditional. I HATE the idea of EITHER, as they aren't widely used and are not THAT popular anymore. Basic is just SO SO, but is basically GONE now! MS GUTTED it, twisted it, and added GUI functionality. C/C++ is nice, but it can be hard for a first language. FORGET PL1, PILOT, RPG, and LOGO! JAVA teaches and reenforces BAD HABITS!
So why do I mention the above(outside of C/C++)? They have ALL been used to teach programming!

If it were up to me, I would start with PASCAL!(ALL the benefits of basic, but with the structure to enforce GOOD HABITS) You can THEN go to C/C++(Practically the mother of all else). You can THEN go to VB(With the understanding that calling VB basic is like calling German Dutch!), the easiest commercial language from a viable company.


Actually, I know why they are teaching first year courses in scheme, and it is a very good reason, but too hard to explain. They are doing things the right way, and it is partly weeding out students who can't work with the style, and partly to teach core concepts while being able to stick closer to the core. They prefer all students to pass, but if they all do pass, it makes later years harder, as they need to keep their rep up. That's the joy of a top university in the field, I both hate and love attending University of Waterloo.



mitharatowen
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10 Feb 2009, 7:34 pm

Cryptic Java errors gave me similar problems when I was in college. :x

-edit- nice I just realized you said there's an error in the language itself! That would be incredibly frustrating!! !



Padium
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10 Feb 2009, 7:40 pm

mitharatowen wrote:
Cryptic Java errors gave me similar problems when I was in college. :x

-edit- nice I just realized you said there's an error in the language itself! That would be incredibly frustrating!! !


That's only my guess as nothing else seems to fit it quite right.



mitharatowen
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10 Feb 2009, 7:41 pm

Have you tried googling the error message?



Padium
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10 Feb 2009, 7:47 pm

mitharatowen wrote:
Have you tried googling the error message?


It wasn't something you could google. It was with the custom error function, which is like this: (error 'name-of-function "error message") which translates into "name-of-error: error message" when that code is run. The error it gave me was "name-of-error: error message" in terms of the error I had wrote, which in itself makes no sense, and it was written correctly. The profs can't seem to figure out why I am having problems with it, but I figure that is because I am using a different version of the language (newer, but that shouldn't make a difference).



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10 Feb 2009, 8:31 pm

Padium wrote:
2ukenkerl wrote:
At least YOU probably have a decent editor! *I* first programmed LISP with a TEXT editor. They are IDIOTS for teaching you a language that is unlike most, and not widely used. But HEY, it IS used in EMACS(the second most popular UNIX text editor)!

FRANKLY, Fortran, and COBOL are traditional. I HATE the idea of EITHER, as they aren't widely used and are not THAT popular anymore. Basic is just SO SO, but is basically GONE now! MS GUTTED it, twisted it, and added GUI functionality. C/C++ is nice, but it can be hard for a first language. FORGET PL1, PILOT, RPG, and LOGO! JAVA teaches and reenforces BAD HABITS!
So why do I mention the above(outside of C/C++)? They have ALL been used to teach programming!

If it were up to me, I would start with PASCAL!(ALL the benefits of basic, but with the structure to enforce GOOD HABITS) You can THEN go to C/C++(Practically the mother of all else). You can THEN go to VB(With the understanding that calling VB basic is like calling German Dutch!), the easiest commercial language from a viable company.


Actually, I know why they are teaching first year courses in scheme, and it is a very good reason, but too hard to explain.


Go ahead, TRY to explain.

Padium wrote:
They are doing things the right way, and it is partly weeding out students who can't work with the style, and partly to teach core concepts while being able to stick closer to the core.


But the style is VERY different from C/C++, JAVA, BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL, etc....

Core concepts? It CAN, if the person understands it properly, demonstrate a stack. Closer to WHICH core? What's next? FORTH? After all, FORTH is closer to lisp than the others are! And IT demonstrates the stack BETTER! To come to think of it, FORTH is closer to the others than lisp is!



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10 Feb 2009, 8:50 pm

2ukenkerl wrote:
Padium wrote:
2ukenkerl wrote:
At least YOU probably have a decent editor! *I* first programmed LISP with a TEXT editor. They are IDIOTS for teaching you a language that is unlike most, and not widely used. But HEY, it IS used in EMACS(the second most popular UNIX text editor)!

FRANKLY, Fortran, and COBOL are traditional. I HATE the idea of EITHER, as they aren't widely used and are not THAT popular anymore. Basic is just SO SO, but is basically GONE now! MS GUTTED it, twisted it, and added GUI functionality. C/C++ is nice, but it can be hard for a first language. FORGET PL1, PILOT, RPG, and LOGO! JAVA teaches and reenforces BAD HABITS!
So why do I mention the above(outside of C/C++)? They have ALL been used to teach programming!

If it were up to me, I would start with PASCAL!(ALL the benefits of basic, but with the structure to enforce GOOD HABITS) You can THEN go to C/C++(Practically the mother of all else). You can THEN go to VB(With the understanding that calling VB basic is like calling German Dutch!), the easiest commercial language from a viable company.


Actually, I know why they are teaching first year courses in scheme, and it is a very good reason, but too hard to explain.


Go ahead, TRY to explain.

Padium wrote:
They are doing things the right way, and it is partly weeding out students who can't work with the style, and partly to teach core concepts while being able to stick closer to the core.


But the style is VERY different from C/C++, JAVA, BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL, etc....

Core concepts? It CAN, if the person understands it properly, demonstrate a stack. Closer to WHICH core? What's next? FORTH? After all, FORTH is closer to lisp than the others are! And IT demonstrates the stack BETTER! To come to think of it, FORTH is closer to the others than lisp is!


After first year it doesn't matter, for most classes after first year they let us use whichever language we see fit. The later years in CS they assume we know the core, and will study whatever languages we intend to use on our on. Things covered in later years are things like compilers, where the only assignment is writing a compiler, operating systems, real time programming which is a little hard to explain, quantum processing, which I won't try to explain, amoung other things. Point is, they are just teaching us the core in scheme, most students hate the language, they do introduce more normal programming in the second term with c, or python if you took the easier courses. For what they are teaching, it would take twice as long to program it in java, although I would prefer using java. This isn't like highschool programming where they teach you to do things that are at the core of a language, rather than at the core of programming in general. After the first term, why they did it that way just clicked and made sense to me.



2ukenkerl
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10 Feb 2009, 9:45 pm

Padium wrote:
2ukenkerl wrote:
Padium wrote:
2ukenkerl wrote:
At least YOU probably have a decent editor! *I* first programmed LISP with a TEXT editor. They are IDIOTS for teaching you a language that is unlike most, and not widely used. But HEY, it IS used in EMACS(the second most popular UNIX text editor)!

FRANKLY, Fortran, and COBOL are traditional. I HATE the idea of EITHER, as they aren't widely used and are not THAT popular anymore. Basic is just SO SO, but is basically GONE now! MS GUTTED it, twisted it, and added GUI functionality. C/C++ is nice, but it can be hard for a first language. FORGET PL1, PILOT, RPG, and LOGO! JAVA teaches and reenforces BAD HABITS!
So why do I mention the above(outside of C/C++)? They have ALL been used to teach programming!

If it were up to me, I would start with PASCAL!(ALL the benefits of basic, but with the structure to enforce GOOD HABITS) You can THEN go to C/C++(Practically the mother of all else). You can THEN go to VB(With the understanding that calling VB basic is like calling German Dutch!), the easiest commercial language from a viable company.


Actually, I know why they are teaching first year courses in scheme, and it is a very good reason, but too hard to explain.


Go ahead, TRY to explain.

Padium wrote:
They are doing things the right way, and it is partly weeding out students who can't work with the style, and partly to teach core concepts while being able to stick closer to the core.


But the style is VERY different from C/C++, JAVA, BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL, etc....

Core concepts? It CAN, if the person understands it properly, demonstrate a stack. Closer to WHICH core? What's next? FORTH? After all, FORTH is closer to lisp than the others are! And IT demonstrates the stack BETTER! To come to think of it, FORTH is closer to the others than lisp is!


After first year it doesn't matter, for most classes after first year they let us use whichever language we see fit. The later years in CS they assume we know the core, and will study whatever languages we intend to use on our on. Things covered in later years are things like compilers, where the only assignment is writing a compiler, operating systems, real time programming which is a little hard to explain, quantum processing, which I won't try to explain, amoung other things. Point is, they are just teaching us the core in scheme, most students hate the language, they do introduce more normal programming in the second term with c, or python if you took the easier courses. For what they are teaching, it would take twice as long to program it in java, although I would prefer using java. This isn't like highschool programming where they teach you to do things that are at the core of a language, rather than at the core of programming in general. After the first term, why they did it that way just clicked and made sense to me.


Well, I DID take programming in College, have experience with all the languages we mentioned, etc.... So I am FAR from a neophyte. HECK, I reverse engineered part of my apple II+, and created some multitasking capability(6502 machine, 6502 Assembly), wrote a parallel processing modem driver(6502 assembly/z80 assembly), a DNC(Digital Numeric Control) coordinator(6502 Assembly), protected DOS(6502 Machine), VT220 emulator(8086 Assembly), FDL emulation complete with multikeyed ISAM(C) self taught, and before college. You should have seen the scheduler I wrote in Korn and PERL! It even determined how many things to run at once, what could be run next, tracked status, built files to allow incremental recovery, etc... Well, I probably should patent it! The customer even said so, and one of the vendors I was helping was looking at integrating some features I created. Anyway, a lot of that DID require knowledge of locking, memory management, etc... Of course, those are just a few of the earlier applicable routines.



Padium
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10 Feb 2009, 10:07 pm

2ukenkerl wrote:
Padium wrote:
2ukenkerl wrote:
Padium wrote:
2ukenkerl wrote:
At least YOU probably have a decent editor! *I* first programmed LISP with a TEXT editor. They are IDIOTS for teaching you a language that is unlike most, and not widely used. But HEY, it IS used in EMACS(the second most popular UNIX text editor)!

FRANKLY, Fortran, and COBOL are traditional. I HATE the idea of EITHER, as they aren't widely used and are not THAT popular anymore. Basic is just SO SO, but is basically GONE now! MS GUTTED it, twisted it, and added GUI functionality. C/C++ is nice, but it can be hard for a first language. FORGET PL1, PILOT, RPG, and LOGO! JAVA teaches and reenforces BAD HABITS!
So why do I mention the above(outside of C/C++)? They have ALL been used to teach programming!

If it were up to me, I would start with PASCAL!(ALL the benefits of basic, but with the structure to enforce GOOD HABITS) You can THEN go to C/C++(Practically the mother of all else). You can THEN go to VB(With the understanding that calling VB basic is like calling German Dutch!), the easiest commercial language from a viable company.


Actually, I know why they are teaching first year courses in scheme, and it is a very good reason, but too hard to explain.


Go ahead, TRY to explain.

Padium wrote:
They are doing things the right way, and it is partly weeding out students who can't work with the style, and partly to teach core concepts while being able to stick closer to the core.


But the style is VERY different from C/C++, JAVA, BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL, etc....

Core concepts? It CAN, if the person understands it properly, demonstrate a stack. Closer to WHICH core? What's next? FORTH? After all, FORTH is closer to lisp than the others are! And IT demonstrates the stack BETTER! To come to think of it, FORTH is closer to the others than lisp is!


After first year it doesn't matter, for most classes after first year they let us use whichever language we see fit. The later years in CS they assume we know the core, and will study whatever languages we intend to use on our on. Things covered in later years are things like compilers, where the only assignment is writing a compiler, operating systems, real time programming which is a little hard to explain, quantum processing, which I won't try to explain, amoung other things. Point is, they are just teaching us the core in scheme, most students hate the language, they do introduce more normal programming in the second term with c, or python if you took the easier courses. For what they are teaching, it would take twice as long to program it in java, although I would prefer using java. This isn't like highschool programming where they teach you to do things that are at the core of a language, rather than at the core of programming in general. After the first term, why they did it that way just clicked and made sense to me.


Well, I DID take programming in College, have experience with all the languages we mentioned, etc.... So I am FAR from a neophyte. HECK, I reverse engineered part of my apple II+, and created some multitasking capability(6502 machine, 6502 Assembly), wrote a parallel processing modem driver(6502 assembly/z80 assembly), a DNC(Digital Numeric Control) coordinator(6502 Assembly), protected DOS(6502 Machine), VT220 emulator(8086 Assembly), FDL emulation complete with multikeyed ISAM(C) self taught, and before college. You should have seen the scheduler I wrote in Korn and PERL! It even determined how many things to run at once, what could be run next, tracked status, built files to allow incremental recovery, etc... Well, I probably should patent it! The customer even said so, and one of the vendors I was helping was looking at integrating some features I created. Anyway, a lot of that DID require knowledge of locking, memory management, etc... Of course, those are just a few of the earlier applicable routines.


Impressive...