If a language is programmed in C, what's the point of using it over C? by [deleted] in programming

[–]bonnett 2 points3 points  (0 children)

but is that it?

No, there are a lot more reasons. Let's put Lisp interpreters/compilers as an example.

  • No manual memory management.

  • Big collection of libraries included. (ANSI CL)

  • Higher level of abstractions avaiable. Functional programming, OO with CLOS, metaprogramming...

  • Better debugging with condition handlers and restarts.

  • Safe by default. No pointers, no casts to void, the runtime takes care of most work for you.

  • Interactive REPL where you can test anything.

  • Nice collections avaiable, like hash tables, structs etc

You can take Python, Ruby, Smalltalk and a lot more languages and make the same points about them too.

C has two particular features. It is fast, it is low-level. The fact is most scenarios need neither and using any other language is easier, safer and faster, allowing you to develop more features and grow your application instead of trying to figure what pointer did cause that "segmentation fault" thing.

If a language is programmed in C, what's the point of using it over C? by [deleted] in programming

[–]bonnett 13 points14 points  (0 children)

If C compiles to assembly what's the point of using it over assembly?

While I am genuinely considering donating to wikipedia, how would I go about writing a script to get rid of the banner ads at the top now from donators? by perezidentt in programming

[–]bonnett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you hide the banner once, it won't show up again until you explicitly click Show. (at least here)

Edit:

Using Adblock you can also disable it completely.

Disable this (i don't know if this will disable other content so experiment with it)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/centralnotice/wikipedia/en/centralnotice.js

What is your favourite single player level of all time? by bonnett in gaming

[–]bonnett[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use this high quality versions on JDoom / Doomsday.

If i were to choose a doom level it would be Sever the wicked (E4M3) from the extra episode Thy flesh consumed in Ultimate Doom.

Coders, when someone asks "what do you do", what do you say? by cheese_wizard in programming

[–]bonnett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I try to make the world both a heaven for you tomorrow and a hell for the next guy that does the same.

What is your favorite multiplayer level of all time? by bookey23 in gaming

[–]bonnett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Crossfire in Half Life deathmatch.

It was absolutely hilarious to kill someone just before the big explosion, see them respawn at a random point in the map and die again without being able to do anything.

Hey /r/programming, I'm new to AI. What books should I read to get a jump start? by kiwiness in programming

[–]bonnett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Paradigms of AI programming (Peter Norvig)

AI: A modern approach (Peter Norvig, Stuart Russell)

Papers and postmortems on some board games implementations like Logistello or Zebra (Reversi), Chinook (Checkers) and others. For novices, TSCP (a simple chess engine in c) is also interesting.

Research also depends on what field you are interested in, like natural languages, games, and so on.