On 03-Mar-07, at 5:35 PM, quasi wrote:
dig this. I can do inaccurate pointer manipulation in C. I can exceed array boundaries in C. So C sux right, by you logic ? It is funny how "safe" stuff and crappy programmers somehow end up together.
precisely my point. The vast majority of programmers in this country are crappy programmers - maybe due to the education system or maybe due to the climate. So how do you get good code out of them? certainly not by letting them loose to code in C or php (or java or perl, for that matter) - you do it by getting them to learn the safe languages like python or pascal. Then let the good ones go further into unknown territory. And then there would be less crappy code in the world.
Open source is all about getting non-professionals getting their hands dirty in delving into code. And this is not going to be productive as long as they are pointed to php, java, C, Visual Basic etc etc.
This advice is not meant, as I have said before, for high level hackers, it is advice for the general run of the mill 'crappy' programmer, who, if well versed in the disciplines enforced by safe languages, may turn out to be not-so-crappy. And that is why pascal was such an excellent teaching/beginners language, because it didnt have pointers at all - to do inaccurate pointer manipulation.
You may be fortunate enought to be in an environment where there are nothing but competent and excellent programmers - I, on the other hand, find it difficult to believe that there are very many such environments in this country. So i would say - avoid php, C and java like plague, try perl if you are comfortable with it - other wise stick to python or ruby.