Darkhack

I know you didn't say web design was easy DaWei. I was just pointing that out in general. Sorry if it seemed as though it was directed at you only. I sometimes come across people in forums that say HTML is easy. Especially in topics such as these. It really puts me off because "Hello World!" in C is easier than a complex page in HTML. The "HTML is easy" statement is just something that puts me off, and I try to correct them and state my opinion on it whenever possible.

I still agree thought that HTML is a good way to get started in programming. The basics are easy to understand and you can get some nice pages without a lot of work. Even if you only spend a couple weeks with HTML it gets the user in the habbit of understanding how a programming language kind of works. They learn about syntax and how it needs to be accurate for the computer to understand what is being done. HTML was the first computer language that I learned before anything else, and I think this is the case with most people as well.

As for the other discussion that was brought up. TECHNICALLY.... a real programming language is one in which it is compiled directly to binary (c/c++, fortran, ect). Java, Python, PHP and many others are TECHNICALLY scripting languages. I put 'technically' in caps because I want people to understand that under normal circumstances I would use the term "programming language" as an umbrella word to describe them. I honestly don't care to get that technical and most people will know what you mean. Keep in mind, that I am primarily a PHP and C# programmer with only a small amount of expierence with C++. I may be a bit bias but I think most developers would agree with me on using the term as an umbrella word. I personally don't wish to argue over something that insignificant though.

DaWei

"Programming Language" IS an umbrella term. Compiled and interpreted are subsets. A programming language is a language which results in a set of instuctions that directly control the operation of a 'computer' in its application to a task. A formatting language does not control the operation of the processor -- the processor controls the application of the formatting in response to ANOTHER set of instructions produced in some programming language. The mental application of logic to the game of "Clue" is not programming. It is a skill that is definitely an adjunct to programming, though. If people want to get down and dirty and pick nits about what programming means in terms of today's architectures, then they need to study real things. The Von Neumann architecture. The design and control of hardware logic elements. These are the foundations of the industry. "Programming" is a layer of some level of abstraction that actually controls these things and interprets the results in ways that lend themselves to being construed as solutions to problems. It seems to me that possibly the introduction of high levels of abstraction, which is a Good Thang for problem solving, has encouraged off-the-cuff muddy thinking about what really transpires twixt the brain cells and the results. While this bodes well for solutions, it doesn't bode well for additional progress, because the users don't understand the used well enough to advance it.

__________________
Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

nnxion

Do you like that game? We should play it sometime

Don't mind me, I just got up, and I'm a bit happy clappy but not fully awake yet.

__________________
"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."
-- Socrates