language

Multiple languages in an ASP.NET MVC application?

What is the best way to support multiple languages for the interface in an ASP.NET MVC application. I've seen people use resource files for other applications. Is this still the best way? ...

What is Turing Complete?

What does the expression Turing Complete means? Can you give a simple explanation, without going into too much theoretical details? ...

How do you mark the maturation point of a programming language?

This is just a food for thought question to help get content into the site for the beta. Hopefully it can spur some interesting discussion. I have noticed with programming languages and environments that they tend to follow a curve that is in some ways similar to natural selection and evolution in species. Simple things tend to stay s...

What are the best resources on designing a new language?

I've been toying with the idea of building a new general purpose programming language lately, and I was wondering where to go for help. Does anyone have a favorite book? Tutorial? Tools? I see the primary benefit of the project being that I will learn more about language design. I have little hope that it will become the next Ruby o...

What if you used the wrong language?

A reply to another question made me remember a project from some years ago when it turned out that Java was not the right tool to use. I typically only learn a new language when I have a problem that it solves better than the ones I already know. [...] Then I write whatever program I wanted to learn that language for in the firs...

"Projects" for learning a new language

When you are learning a new programming language, what are some good projects that can be done across a spectrum of languages? I'm familiar with programming puzzles and read the other related question, but as I think about how I learn a language, I go through stages. First, I learn the basic syntax, then I learn the more advanced (and o...

SICP ... better programming?

Last year I read an article on http://jaortega.wordpress.com/2007/01/31/a-scheme-bookshelf/ that claimed that if you read/study SICP "It will expand your mind. It will cure your diseases", I also read Eric Raymond "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" abou the Lips experience. I tried for a while to use it (I downloaded the SICP pdf and DrSche...

What's your favourite programming language, and its killer feature?

Each language I've used has had its pros and cons, but some features have really shone through as being indispensible, shining examples of how to design a programming language to make programmers happy. I use PHP a lot at work, and the one thing I really miss when moving to other languages is PHP's foreach: foreach($items as $item) //i...

Tree-Based (vs. HTML-Based) Web Framework?

Anyone who writes client-side JavaScript is familiar with the DOM - the tree structure that your browser references in memory, generated from the HTML it got from the server. JavaScript can add, remove and modify nodes on the DOM tree to make changes to the page. I find it very nice to work with (browser bugs aside), and very different f...

What are your favorite "learning" projects, and why?

When learning a new language/framework, are there any projects you find particularly useful to get to know it in depth? How do the different language paradigms affect your choice of project? Maybe you have a pet project which is '10 lines in functional language x" that you like to implement as a much larger imperative language project ju...

Is it worth it to learn an esoteric programming language?

Wikipedia: An esoteric programming language (sometimes shortened to esolang) is a programming language designed as a test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as a joke. There is usually no intention of the language being adopted for real-world programming. Such languages are often popular ...

What is the most unreadable programming language?

Excluding Whitespace, BrainF*ck (and all those other languages not designed for practical usage), and assembly, what do you think is the most difficult real programming language to write readable code in, and why? I find that I'm very comfortable reading code with C/C++ style braces and brackets. I can easily scan a file for method and...

Introducing Python

The company I used to work with has two developers working fulltime, and a handful of freelancers. They're in the process of hiring a new lead developer to try to bring order and management to the development. But, currently, one of the developers has seen the light of Django (the company has only developed in PHP to date) while the oth...

Suggestions on starting a child programming.

What languages and tools do you consider a youngster starting out in programming should use in the modern era? Lots of us started with proprietary Basics and they didn't do all of us long term harm :) but given the experiences you have had since then and your knowledge of the domain now are there better options? There are related queri...

Factorial Algorithms in different languages

I want to see all the different ways you can come up with, for a factorial subroutine, or program. The hope is that anyone can come here and see if they might want to learn a new language. Ideas: Procedural Functional Object Oriented One liners Obfuscated Oddball Bad Code Polyglot Basically I want to see an example, of different way...

What is a language binding?

My good friend, Wikipedia, didn't give me a very good response to that question. So: What are language bindings? How do they work? Specifically accessing functions from code written in language X of a library written in language Y. ...

How can I set LANG to ascii?

I'm accessing an ubuntu machine using PuTTY, and using gcc. The default LANG environment variable on this machine is set to en_NZ.UTF-8, which causes GCC to think PuTTY is capable of displaying UTF-8 text, which it doesn't seem to be. Maybe it's my font, I don't know - it does this: foo.c:1: error: expected â=â, â,â, â;â, âasmâ or â__...

What's wrong with C#?

Asking the same of Java yielded some very interesting responses, so I thought it would be only fair to ask the same thing of C#, probably Java's closest rival. I actually like this sort of question because it's a lot less subjective than "why should I choose this language" or "why is this language so great." So.. what's wrong with C#? ...

Are there any examples where we *need* protected inheritance in C++?

While I've seen rare cases where private inheritance was needed, I've never encountered a case where protected inheritance is needed. Does someone have an example? ...

What programs should I write to truly experience this fancy new language ?

Tried Scheme at one point, just built up half of a "math" and "string" library before getting bored... Similar experience with Java, but stopped early because I was appalled at the lack of operator overloading. When you try out a new language, is there a program/game/function/exercise/problem that you use to get into the hot meaty cent...