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Been there, did that, still making money at it  . I spent my early career in and out of various assembly languages, all microprocessor-based. Now that I think about it, I think learning assembly, then C, then C++, and finally C# has made me really appreciate each language as I learned them. Each language in turn provides a manner of expression that is more concise than its lower-level ancestor. If we are honest and not engaged in pointless optimization, we choose a language based upon the abstractions required to solve the problem at hand.
That said, I have a project now that was originally written in assembly language for a custom-built embedded processor. When it was translated to C the programmer was learning C at the same time. As a result, the C code looks very much like the original assembly source. Everything's global and everybody touches everything. Somehow the original guy discovered the setjmp()/longjmp() abomination, and that adds to the fun.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Quote: When it was translated to C the programmer was learning C at the same time. As a result, the C code looks very much like the original assembly source. Everything's global and everybody touches everything.
That's exactly what I have to deal with: 'casm' and it is an abomination. 
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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Save me from people who think they know programming...
The first two examples are VB, all the others are C#, so don't give me that C# is better than VB crap 
4k+ lines of undocumented VB.NET code in a single WinForm, boasting over 80 fields at the top of the file 
An application that uses global variables for everything! Seriously, they set a global product name and use it in a form, then set it again to use it in another form (breaking the first form if it was ever refreshed, which was not possible, until it was ).
40k+ tables in a single database, with no naming convention whatsoever.
1k+ lines in a single function with loops that are exactly the same, save they iterate over different entities that are functionally the same, but technically aren't.
A report that showed 2000 users, but took 20 minutes to run, team couldn't get it faster until they hired me and I got it back to 3 seconds.
Guy who called me a "little man", cost €100 an hour, but deleted my disposing statements because "the garbage collector handles it for you" and then broke production.
Some guy who created twelve classes that looked exactly the same, but with different read-only property values instead of one class and instantiated that twelve times 
All different projects made by different people.
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In my case, I have upgrade files being generated with a very format specific requirement. Any comments as to why we're doing it this way? Nope. But I do have a comment that says "loop through the data." Sigh, I know that.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Oh, good, that's not me (I don't know C++).
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There used to be a website called CodingHorrors.com where people used to post samples of the abominations they would come across. Not sure if it's being maintained any more.
~d~
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There's so much we could get done if you could just listen to some simple requests and ... take care, of business ... i guarantee you i'd never ask you to do anything you don't know how to do; i'd never ask you to make me coffee ... oh, okay, i see, yes, i'll never call you "darlin'" again ...
OMG, no ! i am not asking you to appear as Clippy, or any other too cutsie icon.!
Like ... i'm using Visual Studio, and i just whisper 'stop,' and the current app stops running; i say 'rebuild,' and it rebuilds the solution; and, a bit fancier request: 'insert datetime.' Maybe one-day we could get into really fancy stuff, like 'insert snippet named propertytemplate3.'
Or, like ... i'm using PhotoShop, and i just whisper 'rotate,' and the current selected layer shows the little hickeys that let me do rotation, as well as scaling; i say 'save as png,' and it saves a copy as a .png file.
And, wow: if you'd talk to me, ask me for whatever you need to help me get things done ... if i could mutter sweet nothins' to you like: 'implement IPropertyChanging;' and, you could respond with asking me: 'where?' ... to which, i might say: 'public Properties in the current document.'
We could have a whole repertoire of little routines where we went back and forth ... winnowing down the possibilities with each step.
Any confusion, we could just backtrack; i hope you won't feel patronized if i do mention you've got a thang about ambiguity, and i do tend to get slacky as my imagination rotates faster than my logic. i hope this is as good for you as it is for me !
i know this is a lot to ask, and i don't want you to go out of your way to help me just because my old eyes are getting weaker. i think you'd be appreciated by multitudes, not just past-their-use-by-date geeks. And, what a hero/heroine you'd be to the hordes of gen-x/y/z who can't type well, and have the attention span of gnats.
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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I'm thinking maybe an intervention here?
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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No, Bill's the site's poet laureate. 
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«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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Thanks, i'll try anything once
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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Have you tried "Alexa! Write this piece of code for me?"
Real programmers use butterflies
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not that desperate ... yet
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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Or simply:
Alexa, browse to StackOverflow
Alexa, copy
...
win!
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It's certainly an interesting idea for editing code, but I don't quite see how it would work for writing code. Remember that all the low-code / no-code techniques work OK within their problem domains, but as soon as one leaves them - wild and eldritch beasts lurk on all sides.
I can see it working quite well for office programs (Word, PowerPoint, etc.), just not for programming.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: wild and eldritch beasts lurk on all sides.
That way, there be dragons!
Real programmers use butterflies
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Hi Daniel, imho, the kind of functionality i describe is limited enough to be doable. i know there are some voice-driven control apps for PhotoShop, although i haven't looked at them.
Even a program limited to recognizing only menu commands, ot tab names, where i could say things like:
// in VS
tab dot Form1 dot find method1
... for programming, the ability to apply named templates/snippets would be catnip.
// in PS CC
layer dot transform dot rotate
file dot save copy dot peeengee
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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The VS example might work with menu options, but I don't see how it would work for code. Every programmer has his/her own way of pronouncing variables (e.g. es que ell vs. sequel for SQL), all of which would have to be taken into account.
You would also require localization even for things like pronouncing the alphabet. I remember a case where I had to spell out a word for a Frenchman, and he kept hearing my 'E' as 'I', because that's how it's pronounced in French.
As an experiment, I suggest that you sit with another programmer, and try to write and edit a program by dictation. I predict that you will find it an exercise in frustration.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Hi, What you describe is functionality far beyond what i imagined anyone reading my little fiction would infer
i'm thinking more like an audio version of TypeScript ... something at a micro level compared to a general purpose speech recognition engine; imagine how tedious it would be to give such an engine unambiguous text for names, etc.
My intent in the original post ... in addition to having fun ... was to see if anyone had tried something similar; what better group to bounce ideas off of than this ?
The issue of saving time/typing drives me to write little "transformers" where input like this:
("Name", "string"),
("Id", "Guid"),
("DateHired", "DateTime"),
("Title", "string"),
("EMail", "string")generates 255 lines of Property code like this (one excerpt):
public Func<DateTime, string, string, bool> NameValidator;
private string _name;
[field:NonSerialized]
public string Name
{
set
{
if (_name == value) return;
if (NameValidator != null)
{
if (NameValidator(DateTime.UtcNow, _name, value))
{
_name = value;
}
else
{
}
}
else
{
}
_name = value;
}
get => _name;
}
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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I'm working on supporting a really oddball display in my GFX stuff - an e-ink display that can do white, black, or red.
I'd like it to be able to display JPGs like the following more or less correctly - or correct-ish at least.
https://imgc.artprintimages.com/img/print/gun-c-1981-82-black-and-red-on-white_u-l-f3q7j70.jpg?h=900&p=0&w=900[^]
(JSOP didn't pick the image, i swear, it was just the first one with the overall color palette i was after that I found  )
Well I figured out how to do it. I'm adding palette/CLUT/indexed-color support to GFX, and for these I will have a 3 color fixed palette that starts with white instead of black, to mirror how the e-ink stuff works.
Then, I use a nearest matching color algo during color the conversion process to get the values I want. If the thing supports things like gray shades I'll just add those to the palette.
Just like my other palette stuff.
That way the JPEG above won't render inverted and monochrome.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I admire your tenacity and knowledge
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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far out !
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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If you ever have the urge to say, "Hold my beer..." stop.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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It's more like "Hold my potion"!
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