blog: store registration check [programming]

[nikos]

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at
http://zabkat.com/blog/winrt-win32-stor ... ration.htm

[Tuxman]

"Modern programming" makes me sad. Languages like Go and Rust were invented for people who don't even understand the concept of pointers and memory, programming like you're wearing diapers and driving a tricycle.

C++ feels real compared to this. I'm actually quite happy with recent C++ standards (although I find myself using more and more Delphi and plain C these days) concerning their practicability.

That said, finally having read your blog article, using namespace is usually quite the opposite of a great idea. I do understand why laziness is an important part of every serious developer's mindset, but I fail to see why blending your namespaces should be recommended anywhere outside "DON'T DO THAT" sections of teaching books.

[Kilmatead]

Languages like Go and Rust were invented for people who don't even understand the concept of pointers and memory, programming like you're wearing diapers and driving a tricycle.

Well, when languages are designed to relieve the user of any responsibility towards thread-safety, scalability, or typecasting, it's sort of a "given" that dumbing-down is the order of the day. That said, I spent quite a few hours reading up on lambda expressions a few months back and came to the conclusion that my antipathy towards Bjarne Stroustrup's monstrosity is fully justified. I was playing around with GCC's Nested Functions extension and came to the conclusion that Baz Lurhmann was right: Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're forty, it will look eighty-five. Sage words for haute couture fashionista's and language-developers alike.

When I first moved to Texas for university back in nineteen-eighty-x, aside from the pronounced size of the cockroaches, I was impressed with the advice to always check under the toilet seat for snakes coiled up there (yes, it's actually a real problem). Moving there from a sabbatical in North Carolina, I already considered myself to be usefully learned in the vagaries of rattlesnakes and bears, but who would have thought that the subtle misogyny of the locals would come in so handy? What does this have to do with programming, you ask? Well, there's a lot to be said for keeping one's toes just far enough away from the viper's nest, but not so far away that you don't know what dangers are out there. <Sigh> - I do miss the simplicity of the AutoIt days.

[Tuxman]

Well, when languages are designed to relieve the user of any responsibility towards thread-safety, scalability, or typecasting, it's sort of a "given" that dumbing-down is the order of the day.

Maybe some of those modern programmers should not do any programming-related work. If basic computer technology is too complicated for you, you should probably do something else with your free time. You know, the community still needs cleaning people.

That does not necessarily mean that you'll just need simpler tools. Lambda expressions can be done right, they are in Lisp(s), they usually aren't in C-like languages. Of course you could just throw them in for a good game of bullshit bingo (chicks love bullshit bingo) - blockchained web services in C++ over the cloud, baby! -, but most of the time you just know you chose the wrong language.
Which is a horrible reason to invent a new language instead.

[Kilmatead]

...the community still needs cleaning people.

Why do you think I'm just the gardener? Lack of ambition? There's a method to my madness (no pun intended - who started calling functions methods anyway... a spade is a spade....)

[Tuxman]

A function is a method with parameters and - probably - a return value, depending on the language; those are not necessarily the same thing. It's good that you're only gardening - as long as you know the difference between a hedge and a shed...

[Kilmatead]

Funnily enough, one of the plants we keep around here is called a Kalopanax, which (at the end of the day) is a fairly beastly thing with spines that seem to be designed for no other reason than to ruin your fingers.

I remember one day I was at a horticultural show with my boss, and we ran across something called an Oplopanax which I had never seen before, so I asked him, "What's the difference between this and the Kalo?"

He thought for a moment, and then said simply, "It's worse."

Which was all I needed to know.

(The moral of the story can be used to explain to those modern programmers of yours what the "++" means when bastardised onto the more soothing simplicity of the 'C'.)

[Tuxman]

Do these modern languages actually still have incremental operators or do their users have to redefine a numerical variable every time? Because inc is soooo 70s.

[Kilmatead]

Because inc is soooo 70s

Considering that they're all touting themselves as being threadsafe out of the box, no doubt somebody decided to mask all the atomics as usual.

volatile long jWrites = 0;
InterlockedIncrement(&jWrites);

What have you got against the 70's? Did you not enjoy your stay at the Hotel California?

[Tuxman]

I'd actually prefer to leave it by now. (70s pop-rock was not the best musical invention of that decade.)

interlockedIncrement, oh my - at least it's not a class yet...

[Kilmatead]

CRITICAL_SECTION csJoke;
InitializeCriticalSectionAndSpinCount(&csJoke, 1000);
EnterCriticalSection(&csJoke);

Well, Beethoven was born in the 70's. Ok, the 1770's, but you never specified a century, and you of all people should know using uninitialised variables is bad practice. Modern programmers probably wouldn't have to worry about that though.

LeaveCriticalSection(&csJoke);

(Yes, it's a painfully slow day here at Kilmatead Studios. )

[Tuxman]

Calling Beethoven pop-rock would be brave though, even for you; in fact, he was rolled over by Chuck Berry not much later.
Some prefer initialized variables, some prefer readable and logical code. We should meet somewhere in between.

[Kilmatead]

People tend to forget that Mozart (a rather poor composer, in my opinion, except for the end of his Don Giovanni and that neat trick he did Wikileaking the Miserere) was really nothing more than the Chuck Berry of his day.

Back then, you got your rocks off any way you could.

Logical code? Me? I'm the king of spaghetti-code!

[Tuxman]

Ah, yes; pointers are better variables and labels are Assembly's natural replacement for methods and functions. Low-level development on a high level is something to achieve. Write Once, Write Ugly.

I really need to get that new Chuck album. I'm not a big fan of classical compositions though, although I could probably stand some Bartók.

[Kilmatead]

although I could probably stand some Bartók.

Bartók's LPWSTR Quartets are about the only thing I like of his. Ahead of his time, he was. Bluebeard is just noisy. Didn't you lads annex his homeland once upon a time? He probably wouldn't have appreciated that. (Edit: Yup, he didn't... jumped ship to America in 1940. Not a fan of the axis-powers heavy-metal sound, apparently.)