Posted on 06/14/2015 1:19:38 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Bloomberg Businessweek has devoted an entire issue to a single article: Paul Ford's "What is Code?"
I read the whole thing online this afternoon, and it's remarkable. I could see it being taught in journalism classes years from now, like Gay Talese's "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" or John Hersey's "Hiroshima." It takes something both very important and hard to understand, and makes it understandable to an audience of smart but nonexpert readers. It does this incredibly well. It mostly feels like fun, not work.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
ping
yep
I can only speak Fortran IV.
Got this far: “There’s C ... used today mostly to build programs that run on devices like printers”
Yeah, right.
Why Apple paid for this 15-year-old teen developer to come to its conference and meet Tim Cook
I'm sure they did not intend for the obvious take many would get from the title........Apple would never procure for their CEO, would they?
Bflr
Python was the best choice for a clean cover although a more realistic choice might be some ugly javascript for a nice dynamic GUI cover.
Ping-worthy Shadow Ace?
coding is cool, when needed. Wrote tic-tac-toe programs in a simplified BASIC in elementary school.
I wrote in HTML back in the last century, then programs like “Dreamweaver” made it un-necessary. Ajax in this century. And now everything is .NET. oh well, keep the pencils (styli) sharp boys (& girls and “yet-to-decides”).
But so much can be done without the need to write code “long hand”. Lots of great, existing software does it for you.
SQL Studio has made re-usable segments copy-and-paste simple. Most other environments have a similar functionality.
We will always need long hand coding, but that is increasingly for a VERY few. Most simply won’t have the need for it.
Or by the time you learn to write in the new code “language”, something else will become all the rage.
All the coding I know I learned on FreeRepublic.com.
Apparently the author did not learn too much!!
will read later, maybe.....
What programing language should an engineer/scientist learn today? I stopped at C++ many years ago. I used C a lot after FORTRAN IV.
Same here and I find it much more complete in explanation to some of the stuff my engineers work in now. I’ve written some applications in Fortran then flow charted them and have them translated into C or something else. The kids scoffed at first but seem to now find the Fortran and flow charts leave good documentation.
The first and almost last code I learned was Cobol in 1980 from a professor so bad he couldn’t teach Eskimos to make igloos. And having to fight the Indonesian kids for keypunch machines at 2:00 a.m. left a really bad taste. I didn’t touch a computer of any kind for 15 years.
Now all the code I need to know I get from Free Republic’s HTML Sandbox.
Python
Don’t forget about RPG.
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