timer

[Jeff Johnson]

If you say so. The first GUI I used was the stuff in <windows.h>
on VC++6. I had no designer to work with and pretty much nothing
was as simple as it could be.

Nowadays I use Gtk - it's a lot nicer to work with, but I still
don't use a designer to lay stuff out. It's easier to write the
code in the first place than to have to reformat and tweak it
after the fact.

(Though to be fair, for any project of reasonable complexity,
I drop the GUI entirely because I'm not able to use GUI's to
do anything reasonably complex. Maybe the problem is on my
end but it applies to all graphical interfaces.)

And this is EXACTLY what I meant when I said that learning with console
applications was a "cultural" thing. You came from the text-based culture.
Today's n00Bs can go either way.

 

[Registered User]

There's a very popular view that starting with VB -causes-
people to become bad programmers. This may be part of the
reason why.

Regardless of the language, GUI projects present the opportunity for
business logic to be scattered about in various event handlers.
Learning bad practices isn't really learning.

regards
A.G.

 

[Registered User]

Yes, that's a good point and something a beginner must watch out for.
Having said that, you can end up with a right old mess in a console app,
too.

One problem with learning and RAD tools is the tools don't teach OO.
Another problem is the idea that using RAD tools negates the need for
a proper design. Once screens start flipping around ....

Learning software engineering and learning a language are different
activities (although that distinction seems lost on too many of the softies
I've met).

OOA/D/P skills represent the key to unlocking the power of the tools.
I've never met a self-taught programmer who fully grasps these
concepts. Of course I travel in a relatively small area

regards
A.G.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I don't want to harp on the VB aspect too much in a C# group, but you have
to consider that a HUGE number of people got started in programming via
Classic VB, in which it was virtually impossible to make a console app.

You can write console apps in VB6.

Not that much used though. But some CGI was done in VB6.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Yes, people should EVENTUALLY learn what's happening, but I've been pretty
much agreeing with Steve throughout this discussion. After all, there's a
lot of stuff going on behind a console application as well that is a black
box to the learner.

A console under windows has indeed a lot behind the scenes. But it does
not affect a console app (not unless really doing some advanced
Win32 API stuff).

The console is basically emulating a VT terminal and therefore
the environment and the app are pretty good separated.

The bottom line is that it's a cultural thing. When I went to MVP summits in
the past with the VB.NET group (I was a VB6 MVP) I remember that the VB'ers
almost as a whole complained that Microsoft sample code was always using
console apps when virtually no VB person would ever think of doing this;
they'd just start a WinForm project and drag a text box or label onto it and
write to that. On the other hand, C#'ers (what a silly word) immediately go
for the console, probably because in the beginning most of them came from C
and were not big on the GUI.

However, C# as a language has matured and a lot of the people coming into it
now are getting it as their first language, so why shouldn't we get them
started on GUIs from the outset?

Console is still a simpler concept.

Just take a very classic example like using a Sleep call.

It work as expected for the console app.

The one doing the GUI app posts here "why ..." and then
the explanation become very complicated. Because it is
a more complex environment.

Arne

 

[Jeff Johnson]

You can write console apps in VB6.

Not that much used though. But some CGI was done in VB6.

Hence the word "virtually." It's not a project type offered "out of the
box." It's not something a new user (the focus of this whole discussion) is
going to be able to do.

 

[Jeff Johnson]

OOA/D/P skills represent the key to unlocking the power of the tools.
I've never met a self-taught programmer who fully grasps these
concepts. Of course I travel in a relatively small area

Ah, I get it. "You don't have formal CS training, therefore you are a hack."
Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Hence the word "virtually." It's not a project type offered "out of the
box." It's not something a new user (the focus of this whole discussion) is
going to be able to do.

That is true.

I guess even rather experience people would have to Google it.

Arne