Random pet peeve: '\0'

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@L B

LOL :)

Newbies have to start somewhere ....

Maybe solution is too strong a word, but it's simple & works.

Cheers.
@LB: Windows console sucks, don't generalize.
Consoles should not be used as an interface for an average consumer, they are more suited for use in specialized situations where an engineer or systems admin will deal with them. Of course if using a console makes you more productive, by all means use it - but I would not recommend for a beginner programmer to learn how to write console applications when they will most likely end up developing GUIs or games for average consumers.
Your backyard is not the world.

Some applications that require user interaction and are perfectly fine in the terminal.
wicd-curses: control network connections
alpine, mutt: email client
irssi: IRC client
octave: numerical computations
vim: text editor

> but I would not recommend for a beginner programmer to learn how to write console applications
They can't do a `member()' function, the UI is the least of their worries.
I plead ignorance; I haven't even heard of any of those. I'll take your word for it because it is clear I don't know what I am talking about now - sorry.
@L B

For the first year or two (at least) at university, students learn concepts like writing their own sort routine or linked list or AVL tree say. Teachers & I am sure the students don't want to overly complicate everything by having to learn a GUI system (not in the least trivial) as well. People also learn a lot by doing on-line problems, which one also would not want to & cannot complicate by having a GUI interface. The thing is beginners will always write console apps because they have enough on their plate learning the language & how to do the actual problem.

I don't mean to get personal, but you mentioned your age a while back, so I am guessing that you are not quite at university yet - if you are then very well done ! Also, you should be congratulated IMO at the large amount of knowledge you have already. My point is, be prepared to spend at least the first year at uni writing console apps. If that is the case, then I know you will breeze through that stuff with your eyes closed.

The other thing is, other people arrive at uni with vastly less knowledge than you, but the uni still has to provide for them too, and you all might lumped together at least initially.

Maybe my view is a bit outdated, and you might be going a university with very high standards?

Edit: I didn't see the last 2 posts while I was doing mine.
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I use a multitude of terminal programs everyday at work.
I guess it's because I learned C++ through writing plugins for software - I always had a visual interface that interacted with my code. I didn't learn what a console was until a year or so into C++.
@ne555
E-mail clients, IRC clients and text editors don't, IMO, belong in the terminal (that's not to say the option shouldn't exist, but they're better suited to GUIs), and the other programs you mentioned are not for average consumers (plenty of people can't operate the wifi manager on Windows (because it sucks), let alone a curses interface to a UNIX daemon). I like to use the terminal a lot and in many cases I prefer it to a GUI, but you should never have to use it. That said, I do believe every programmer should learn how to program it. It's the most flexible form of I/O because text can be redirected and filtered and converted. A lot of graphical programs on UNIX systems are really just running a textual program as a child process, redirecting its output to a pipe and then redisplaying it on a GUI. You can't redirect buttons and menus.
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> E-mail, IRC and text editors don't, IMO, belong in the terminal
¿why not? ¿what do they have that deserve to use X?
(touchpad are troublesome, so the rat is not allowed)

> and the other programs you mentioned are not for average consumers.
wicd-curses: choose the network to connect, input the password. Average consumers want to connect to the net, ¿don't they?
As for `octave', it's a real shame. I would like to see it used in highschool.
ne555 wrote:
> and the other programs you mentioned are not for average consumers.
wicd-curses: choose the network to connect, input the password. Average consumers want to connect to the net, ¿don't they?
Average users use the built-in networking functionality in their OS.
ne555 wrote:
what do they have that deserve to use X?

"Belong" was the wrong word; just as lions belong in African plains, but are preferred by humans in the zoo, so too e-mail clients, IRC clients and text editors belong in the terminal, but are preferred by humans in the GUI.

wicd-curses: choose the network to connect, input the password. Average consumers want to connect to the net, ¿don't they?

Yes, but they don't like to do so via the terminal. Are you deliberately being obtuse?

As for `octave', it's a real shame. I would like to see it used in highschool.

Well I can't pass judgement on it as I've never used it, but high schoolers generally won't like text interfaces either.
just as lions belong in African plains, but are preferred by humans in the zoo, so too e-mail clients, IRC clients and text editors belong in the terminal, but are preferred by humans in the GUI.


This is the most absurd analogy I've read in a while.

Lions are not a tool for human use. Wherever humans find the most use for a program is where they belong. If humans find more use for programs in the GUI, then that's where the program belongs.
Disch wrote:
Lions are not a tool for human use

I would agree; we are food for lions to use... (for what the lion is concerned)

Edit:
anyways for the current discussion. I've got a dozen books for programming, half of them C# and the other half C++ oriented. Most of them use the Console for most examples, Unless they are parts that are directly associated with a GUI.
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@Disch
I was being poetic; surely it was clear what I meant.
@Disch I thought chrisname was pretty clear in what he meant?
¿muy claro, LB? ¿o muy oscuro?
I took his post out of context of the thread, so it wasn't clear. After reading earlier posts it becomes clear.

Apologies. ^^
¡¿muy annoying, ne555?!

@ Disch: is your thread still about '\0'?
Doesn't look like it. I stopped reading it after like the first 5 replies.
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