Geek Speak

Thanks T...it's been cracking me up!

Hmmm, I'm not familiar with those (I generally use more web-oriented, abstract languages)...would I be correct in assuming that they work in a similar fashoin to subroutines, functions, subprocedures, methods, etc? IE: accept arguments/parameters, return values, and other such things?

Hmmm, I'm not familiar with those (I generally use more web-oriented, abstract languages)...would I be correct in assuming that they work in a similar fashoin to subroutines, functions, subprocedures, methods, etc? IE: accept arguments/parameters, return values, and other such things?

No, they don't accept parameters or anything like that. They basically create new variable types (by "type" I mean like int, short, etc. I don't remember the exact terminology). Here's an example of some structs, from a program I was working on recently:

typedef struct coords
{
float x,y;
} coords, *coords_ptr

typedef struct stars_typ
{
coords p;
} stars, *stars_ptr;

typedef struct ships_typ
{
coords vertices[4];
float xo;
float yo;
float x_velocity;
float y_velocity;
int status;
} ships, *ships_ptr;

typedef struct shots_typ
{
coords p,q;
int color;
float y_velocity;
} shots, *shots_ptr;

stars star[100];
ships ship;
shots shot;

If I want to say, change the status of the ship to 2, I would do this:

ship.status = 2

I find it kind of nifty.

Oh! I do remember reading about those...I think it was on the CPlusPlus.com tutorial. Yeah, I know what you mean...data types. Seems a lot like an object in that respect, really. Anyway, I did read about them a little, but never got into it. C/C++ bugs the heck outta me...I don't need that kind of power. There is such a thing as TOO abstract, though. I dig PHP because it's a nice balance between the two. Flexible and simple, but far from lacking in power. I feel the same way about Java (gotta love Java ).

Honestly, though, I must confess: I do use CFML a bit. It seems like newbie junk, but I have to give it credit for being exactly what it wants to be: easy to learn, easy to use, and good for FAST web applications.

BWAAA HA HAA!! oh my god, my sides. this is the most ridiculous thread i've ever seen, i just thought i'd share that. i don't know if you're kidding or what, but damn, i'm laughing.

Kidding? I don't understand. If you're asking whether or not we're making this up, the answer is no. The acronyms, opinions and code here are all authentic, I believe.

ok, i'll stop kidding... *spff...* *must stop laughing* *stiffled giggles* no, don't worry you guys aren't nerds or anything.... *more stiffled laugh*

ok, i'm playing. do you guys remember the superfriends from the simpsons? they were those nerdy kids bart had to hang out with when he discovered the comet. do you folks sit around and talk to each other verbally in code? THAT i would like to see.

LOL. Naw. One thing I really dig about programming part of the time is that most people are kind of shocked when they hear it. I sort of think the same thing myself about people who know more about programming than I do: how can they go out bowling, or the movies? They're not NORMAL humans, after all. It's really not a big deal, though. We're no different than a mechanic overall...it's just about the knowledge. However, people are sort of "afraid" of computers for some weird reason. A guy will try to tell the mechanic what's wrong with his car, but when it comes to a programmer, most just sort of take a step back and keep out out of the way, when it's really not that complicated...it's just intimidating. It's all in yer head, though.

Heck, I could have you writing simple PHP programs that accept user input in a day or two of training, tops. Computers are just hard to get started with, and are still fairly new to the mainstream public, so people tend to think that people who work with them often must be nerds living in their techno-dungeon.

Yeah, I remember the Superfriends. It was funny because while Bart was forced to hang out with them, Lisa hung out with them voluntarily.

And speaking in code is fun. Actually, I've never had a consversation in code, but it sounds intriguing (I must be a nerd or something). Actually, in elementary school, I was practically a stereotypical nerd. I had huge glasses, and my friends and I talked about GW-BASIC and Batch programming at recess while everyone else was playing sports. One day in fifth grade one of my friends brought a printout to school with Pi to 40 decimal places, and we committed it all to memory (and I still remember the first 25 to this day - how pathetic is that?)
[Edited by Arthur Dent on 10-23-2001]

Ugh...that's bad. Even worse than the fact that I can recite the Greek and Hebrew alphabets...which is of 100% absolutely no use to me in any practical way whatsoever. Anyway, math isn't my bag, baby. Much credit to you sir, for apparently mastering something that I despise.

A programmer who despises math? Say it isn't so.

Why did you learn Hebrew, BTW?

I didn't learn Hebrew...just the alphabet. Ditto for Greek, although with Greek, I came fairly close to learning a bit. Just never got any farther, and I've forgotten most of what I learned. I do hope to learn a language (spoken language, that is) at some point, but for now I'm just stuck with two foreign alphabets taking up valuable brainspace.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I hate relational databases sometimes!

I could not link up the tables I needed no matter how many times I pounded on the monitor!!!!

I outer joined, I inner joined, I equal joined... all to no avail. I had to parse data to make it work!!!

Frustrating.


PS I hate you data non normalizers out there!!!

MySQL makes it easy as hizzell. Example: say you want to grab a record from a table full of articles, which has an "aid" field which references the ID for the author, in the authors table...you want to get the article data, and the authors name. Behold the ease of MySQL:

[code]SELECT a.articleid, a.title, a.body, a2.name FROM
articles a, authors a2 WHERE a.articleid = '1' AND a.aid = a2.authorid[/code]

You're talking about querying data that is existing in a database... I'm talking about building the table structure so it can be queried.

MySQL syntax appears to be the same as what I use in SQL server

Yeah, it uses a very standard syntax. I don't understand: linking them while building? We talking about foreign keys here or something?

Primary keys, Foreign keys etc etc. Basically I'm taking HUGE piles of information from several sources in several formats and building tables in a central location so the data can be accessed. Finding the correct, normalized data to link all of this together is major pain. Right now I have 20+ tables of data that i have to relate together (no "aid" or computer assigned primary keys cause then those tables wouldn't make sense to the others)... some tables have upwards of 20000 records, some only have 50 records. Linking tables like this together will cause them to barf unless you use the correct SQL joins... PAIN IN THE ARSE!!

Ah, I see. That threw me off...I always have to "unofficially" create my foreign keys, so to speak. It's up to me to make sure they all line up properly. Works well enough. And yeah, that's a lot of records. This forum has one table that tracks words and such...around 500,000 records! Yikes. This whole forum has 30+ MB of data...and that's just raw text.

Hey TWT

I fixed up my Crystal problems...

I had field parameters set... actually the field defaulted to return values only above 0 and I had tons of 0's in the fields. I just don't know why it defaulted like that... never done it before.

Databases are like women, you have to caress and care for them and pay oh so much attention to them or they'll get mean.... and they'll wait for the most inopportune moments to argue about it.


Love ya ladies!!!

Pff...no wonder this thread is called Geek Speak!