Spring Fever?

[Summer]

Forgive me for my off the wall jokes, I don't know any better, due to Spring Break Fever. Anyway, I need to choose one programming class when I start planning for my upcoming semester. The choices are hard to pick from:
BASIC
RPG
COBOL
FORTRAN
PASCAL
QUERY
C
C++
So taken from some experts in the field. Which one of the above, would do me the most good if I'm going into Computer Information Systems. You just don't realize what a help it is to me, by reading your posts, even down to the jokes. I love'em.

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Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.....*Helen Keller

[tweakthis]

You just don't realize what a help it is to me, by reading your posts, even down to the jokes. I love'em.

Hi there, Summer. Good luck with the choices for programming. As I'm sure you've realized I know zip, zero, zilch and even less about programming. I'm pleased that you enjoy the jokes and that you're sharing a few of your own. Laughter is definitely the best medicine!

I am, however, moving this post to the programming forum where I think you have a better chance at getting an answer from those that do know about that sort of thing. Not everyone that stops in that forum drops by this one. (Unfortunately http://www.helpfromtechs.com/ubb/smilies/wink.gif ) Good luck with school. You've already got a sense of humour so I'm sure you'll do just fine. http://www.helpfromtechs.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

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If you can remain calm, you don't have all the facts.

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I can be reached at tweakthis@helpfromtechs.com

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by tweakthis on March 16, 2001 at 11:10 AM</font>

[Tonker]

Well here's my $0.02. I'm by no means an expert on this, though.. so take it with a grain of salt.

I would say your choice would depend on the platforms you'll be supporting. C/C++ is probably still the most popular language going. It's relatively portable - can be compiled on most major platforms. Catch is it's a pretty invloved language, you can do almost anything with it, but it's more difficult than say, Visual Basic.

If you're going to be dealing predominantly with Win32 systems, you might want to consider Visual Basic. It's great for rapid application development, relatively easy to learn and use, but you won't be able to use it on anything but Windows( at least for now).

Cobol is another possibility (usually found on mainframes), I hate it, but if you're good you can make big $$ - at least until recently. I don't think most businesses tend to use COBOL for their new projects, but there's a lot of COBOL code out there that still needs supporting.

I should admit that I've never heard of Query or RPG, perhaps someone else can enlighten me on that.

Hope it helps.

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[MikeFoster]

Tonker has some good advise there. And I'll throw in my 2 cents as well.

Do you know C? If not, take the C class first. Then move on to C++ or Java. After you have a feel for C syntax you'll be invincible.

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[manunkind]

Start with C.

It will help you later if you move into Java. Java is pretty much modeled after C.

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[reddsteel]

That is what I plan on doing as well. Starting with C and moving on to C++.

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Jordan Gadd (reddsteel)
HelpFromTechs.com Moderator
reddsteel@helpfromtechs.com

[MikeFoster]

C++ is powerful, but complex.

C is also powerful, and much easier for quick little utilities like text filters.

C is also a great way to learn assembly language. The asm keyword is standard now.

Here's a little something I wrote a long time ago:

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Append key to the keyboard buffer. Return 0 if buffer full, else key.

unsigned kb_write( unsigned key )
{
// preserve registers we'll change, and point ds to the BIOS data area

asm push bx
asm push dx
asm push ds
asm mov ax,BIOS_SEG
asm mov ds,ax

// get tail, save a copy, and then point it to the next word in the buffer

asm mov dx,[KBUF_TAIL]
asm mov bx,dx
asm add dx,2

// if tail is at the buffer's end we must wrap around to the beginning

asm cmp dx,KBUF_END
asm jne no_wrap
asm mov dx,KBUF_BEG
no_wrap:

// if tail is now equal to head then buffer is full, return zero

asm cmp dx,[KBUF_HEAD]
asm mov ax,0 // ax == 0 indicates failure
asm je the_end

// if buffer not full then stuff key at tail and return key

asm mov ax,key // ax == key indicates success
asm mov ,ax

// update BIOS data with tail's new position

asm mov [KBUF_TAIL],dx

// restore what we changed

asm pop ds
asm pop dx
asm pop bx

the_end:

return _AX;
}


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[MikeFoster]

Oh I can't stop now! I guess you noticed that the function kb_write() allows you to simulate a key-press... but what about simulating the entry of more than one key at once?

Well, since you asked, the following function calls the previous one.


//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Append chars from key_str to keyboard buffer while buffer is not full.

unsigned kb_writes( unsigned char *key_str )
{
while ( *key_str )
if ( ! kb_write( *key_str++ ) )
return 0;

return 1;
}


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[MikeFoster]

If you want to try those functions you'll need these constants:

#define EOD 0xFFFF // end of data marker for data area of kb_data
#define BIOS_SEG 40h // segment address of BIOS data area
#define KBUF_HEAD 1Ah // offset address of pointer to kbd buffer head
#define KBUF_TAIL 1Ch // offset address of pointer to kbd buffer tail
#define KBUF_BEG 1Eh // offset address of beginning of kbd buffer
#define KBUF_END 3Eh // offset address of end of kbd buffer


This is from a program I wrote that would record up to 15 keystrokes and then play them back. So you could make little DOS macros with it. You could record something like cls \n dir /on /b, then rename that executable to something like dirsort, or whatever.

I have too much fun.

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[reddsteel]

You're on a roll Mike!

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Jordan Gadd (reddsteel)
HelpFromTechs.com Moderator
reddsteel@helpfromtechs.com

[manunkind]

Go on with your bad self Mike! http://www.helpfromtechs.com/ubb/smilies/grin.gif

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[MikeFoster]

LOL! How can I not respond to that!

http://www.helpfromtechs.com/ubb/smilies/lol.gif

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[reddsteel]

http://www.helpfromtechs.com/ubb/smilies/lol.gif

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