After you’ve done some languages, they all look the same. Yes, some have interesting features like the indent-based blocking of Python, and I’ll have to look up if the new language has “else if”, “elsif”, “elif”, or whatever, but als long as it is coming from the family of ALGOL-like languages, it does not matter much. You’ll learn the basic functions needed to get around, and off you go.
Just a few weeks ago, I started learning Python. Yes, this indenting takes some time to get used to. My son does Python for about a year now - he started with it at university. Maybe ten days after I started learning, I invited him to have a look at my first Python program. I have no idea what he expected. A “Hello, World” with a few extra features, maybe? Definitely not the 2.5k lines app I had written in my spare time, with GUI, databases, harvesting data from a web site with caching, and creating PDF files with optimized layout for the data I processed. In the end, it was just another programming language.
I didn’t even know about the Python indentation thing until I was practically done learning it! I’m just used to copying whatever indentation scheme my coworkers are using, for consistency.
The software gets data from a website named bricklink.com, where one can buy and sell LEGO bricks and sets.
The main view holds a list of bricks I’ve selected from the large range available. In a requester to add parts, I can select a certain brick from the list of existing bricks by first chosing a category (e.g. “Bricks”) in the leftmost column, then chosing it’s shape (e.g. “Brick 2x4”) in the middle one, and then selecting the color (of the known existing colors for this brick, e.g. “Black”) in the right column. On all three selections I can multi-select and sort, which allows me to select e.g. a number of different Bricks, then sort the last view by color, and multiselect those bricks in the color I need. OK’ing the requester add the part(s) to my list.
The list that shows all the properties (including when this part was in production, how much a single brick of it weighs, as well as mold codes and article numbers). From there, I can choose some bricks (usually 15 in a go) to print, which produces a PDF with 15 labels on a double-sided A4-paper with cut-marks on one side. I cut them along the cut marks and put them into the bag with the coresponding part. This is quite helpful, if you consider a box with bags all containing e.g. black parts and bad lighting conditions in the storage room. Alternatively, I can print a double-sided paper with four larger cards to cut, which I laminate and use for marking boxes when I have larger amounts of one brick shape and color.
I can (and do) export those bricks to an export folder as CSV once I’ve printed the labels. In a future version of the software, I will be able to take a bag or box of parts from my collection, select it in my software via it’s article number, and derive an approximate count by weighing them (therefor the parts weight) to get an approximate inventory.
Hey, thanks for explaining the project for me. That sounds fascinating, is it public? Not that I want to steal it, I never got into Lego, just would like to see exactly how it works.
It also begs the question of how much Lego you actually have lol.
I’ve been thinking of building Lego when I’m sad but it seems so expensive.
No, the project is still in its early stages, far from what I would publish.
Regarding the amount of LEGO, well, if I write a resource management and inventory system, you can imagine that it is a bit more than a handfull. My current estimates are around one million bricks, give or take a few hundred k. One of the reason to inventorize it…
I don’t make money with it, on the contrary - my son is a bit more direct here and claims I’m wasting money ;-) It is just a hobby. OK, a big one. I build my own models for fun and exhibit them at shows and events.
And: Curiosity is good. It kept the human race advancing.
Yeah this only really applies to Algol style imperative languages. Dependent types and say stack languages like idris and apl are dramatically different in their underlying axioms.
Indeed. I have done languages like Prolog and Forth, too, and have actually written a bit in APL ages ago. Yes, they are different, but in the end, it just adds a little bit of complexity. The underlying algorithms are universal, just the methods and structures to achieve them differ. Actually, the first programming language I have written was a simplified Forth derivate - in 6510 Assembler.
I’ve not had those while working with concurrent programs with c++ for over a year. Pointers, QT programming, non-qt backend programming, coding an engine to work with computer vision runners (openvino mostly), image management (more pointers)… Idk, this is gonna sound rude but just code better? Most of my errors were segfaults, I have had to plug the debugger and/or tons of prints and I made it work.
If you want to see giant error logs, check pyspark errors. But even those have the relevant line of info and then all the rest of the garbage info that no one really needs, like any other language.
It really depends what you’re doing. The last big project I did with C++ templates was using them to make a lot of compile-time guarantees about concurrency locks so they don’t need to be checked at runtime (thus trading my development time for faster performance). I was able to hide the majority of the templates from users of the library, and spent extra time writing custom static_assert messages.
C++ templates are in fact a compile-time turing complete language, as crazy as that sounds.
I’ve seen way worse. Imagine a project that uses C preprocessor structures to make a C-compiler provide a kind-of C++. Macros that are pages long, and if you forget a single bracket anywhere, your ten pages look like a romance novel.
Or VHDL synthesis messages. You’ve got no real control over them, 99.9% of the warnings are completely irrelevant, but one line in a 50k lines output could hint at a problem - if you only found it.
So far, the output of C or C++ compilers (except for the above-mentioned project) has not been a problem or me, but I’m doing this for about 40 years now, so I’ve got a bit of experience.
One of the key problems of learning VHDL at universities is that most teachers there are amazingly clueless about the language. Not only do you need a bit of a different mindset (you do not program, you define), but their knowledge of language and systems is stuck in the last century.
When I was a regular in a VHDL group on the site we don’t mention here, we regularly had students who got taught techniques that are obsolete or at least deprecated since 1989.
Yep, sadly I’ve been exposed to a few such codebases before. I certainly learned a lot about how NOT to design a project.
You’ve been at it longer than I have, but I’ve already had coworkers look at me like I’m a wizard for decoding their error message. You do get a feel for where the important parts of the error actually are over time. So much scrolling though…
Yes, I have my share of coworkers asking me when they run into problems, too. They even ask me when they have Windows problems. And I don’t do Windows - I do Linux and embedded systems.
You do get a feel for where the important parts of the error actually are
Yes, after decades of scanning large pages of text - code, errors, logs, search results, etc - a programmers ability to apply pattern recognition to screens of letters can be truly remarkable.
Learning how to get models and views together took some time, but after the second refactoring that week I managed to have neat objects for each MVC with clean interfaces. My biggest source in the app defines a requester with three columns of lists: a global category, then parts from that category, and finally the available colors for that part. Each of those views is an object, their interacting logic is an object, and finally the actual requester is an object, and this makes thing easy to handle.
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After you’ve done some languages, they all look the same. Yes, some have interesting features like the indent-based blocking of Python, and I’ll have to look up if the new language has “else if”, “elsif”, “elif”, or whatever, but als long as it is coming from the family of ALGOL-like languages, it does not matter much. You’ll learn the basic functions needed to get around, and off you go.
Just a few weeks ago, I started learning Python. Yes, this indenting takes some time to get used to. My son does Python for about a year now - he started with it at university. Maybe ten days after I started learning, I invited him to have a look at my first Python program. I have no idea what he expected. A “Hello, World” with a few extra features, maybe? Definitely not the 2.5k lines app I had written in my spare time, with GUI, databases, harvesting data from a web site with caching, and creating PDF files with optimized layout for the data I processed. In the end, it was just another programming language.
I didn’t even know about the Python indentation thing until I was practically done learning it! I’m just used to copying whatever indentation scheme my coworkers are using, for consistency.
I’m interested in specifically what your first program did?
Like what data is it harvesting and how is it showing that in PDFs or should I say why?
The software gets data from a website named bricklink.com, where one can buy and sell LEGO bricks and sets.
The main view holds a list of bricks I’ve selected from the large range available. In a requester to add parts, I can select a certain brick from the list of existing bricks by first chosing a category (e.g. “Bricks”) in the leftmost column, then chosing it’s shape (e.g. “Brick 2x4”) in the middle one, and then selecting the color (of the known existing colors for this brick, e.g. “Black”) in the right column. On all three selections I can multi-select and sort, which allows me to select e.g. a number of different Bricks, then sort the last view by color, and multiselect those bricks in the color I need. OK’ing the requester add the part(s) to my list.
The list that shows all the properties (including when this part was in production, how much a single brick of it weighs, as well as mold codes and article numbers). From there, I can choose some bricks (usually 15 in a go) to print, which produces a PDF with 15 labels on a double-sided A4-paper with cut-marks on one side. I cut them along the cut marks and put them into the bag with the coresponding part. This is quite helpful, if you consider a box with bags all containing e.g. black parts and bad lighting conditions in the storage room. Alternatively, I can print a double-sided paper with four larger cards to cut, which I laminate and use for marking boxes when I have larger amounts of one brick shape and color.
I can (and do) export those bricks to an export folder as CSV once I’ve printed the labels. In a future version of the software, I will be able to take a bag or box of parts from my collection, select it in my software via it’s article number, and derive an approximate count by weighing them (therefor the parts weight) to get an approximate inventory.
Hey, thanks for explaining the project for me. That sounds fascinating, is it public? Not that I want to steal it, I never got into Lego, just would like to see exactly how it works.
It also begs the question of how much Lego you actually have lol.
I’ve been thinking of building Lego when I’m sad but it seems so expensive.
No, the project is still in its early stages, far from what I would publish.
Regarding the amount of LEGO, well, if I write a resource management and inventory system, you can imagine that it is a bit more than a handfull. My current estimates are around one million bricks, give or take a few hundred k. One of the reason to inventorize it…
Thanks again.
Do you make money with Lego or is it purely a hobby. Apologies for the questions I’m inherently curious and this is very interesting.
I don’t make money with it, on the contrary - my son is a bit more direct here and claims I’m wasting money ;-) It is just a hobby. OK, a big one. I build my own models for fun and exhibit them at shows and events.
And: Curiosity is good. It kept the human race advancing.
Thanks again.
I would say that it isn’t wasted money if it’s something you enjoy and brings you pleasure or satisfaction.
Yeah this only really applies to Algol style imperative languages. Dependent types and say stack languages like idris and apl are dramatically different in their underlying axioms.
Indeed. I have done languages like Prolog and Forth, too, and have actually written a bit in APL ages ago. Yes, they are different, but in the end, it just adds a little bit of complexity. The underlying algorithms are universal, just the methods and structures to achieve them differ. Actually, the first programming language I have written was a simplified Forth derivate - in 6510 Assembler.
I guess you’ve never seen some of the 10-page template errors C++ compilers will generate. I don’t think anything prepares you for that.
I’ve not had those while working with concurrent programs with c++ for over a year. Pointers, QT programming, non-qt backend programming, coding an engine to work with computer vision runners (openvino mostly), image management (more pointers)… Idk, this is gonna sound rude but just code better? Most of my errors were segfaults, I have had to plug the debugger and/or tons of prints and I made it work.
If you want to see giant error logs, check pyspark errors. But even those have the relevant line of info and then all the rest of the garbage info that no one really needs, like any other language.
It really depends what you’re doing. The last big project I did with C++ templates was using them to make a lot of compile-time guarantees about concurrency locks so they don’t need to be checked at runtime (thus trading my development time for faster performance). I was able to hide the majority of the templates from users of the library, and spent extra time writing custom static_assert messages.
C++ templates are in fact a compile-time turing complete language, as crazy as that sounds.
I’ve seen way worse. Imagine a project that uses C preprocessor structures to make a C-compiler provide a kind-of C++. Macros that are pages long, and if you forget a single bracket anywhere, your ten pages look like a romance novel.
Or VHDL synthesis messages. You’ve got no real control over them, 99.9% of the warnings are completely irrelevant, but one line in a 50k lines output could hint at a problem - if you only found it.
So far, the output of C or C++ compilers (except for the above-mentioned project) has not been a problem or me, but I’m doing this for about 40 years now, so I’ve got a bit of experience.
I had to do a module programming in VHDL for my EE degree.
Every time I see it mentioned anywhere I have a compulsion to scream: FUCK VHDL AND ITS FUCKING ERRORS! NO YOUR ANALYSIS & SYNTHESIS IS UNSUCCESSFUL!
I did not pursue a career in electronics…
One of the key problems of learning VHDL at universities is that most teachers there are amazingly clueless about the language. Not only do you need a bit of a different mindset (you do not program, you define), but their knowledge of language and systems is stuck in the last century.
When I was a regular in a VHDL group on the site we don’t mention here, we regularly had students who got taught techniques that are obsolete or at least deprecated since 1989.
Yep, sadly I’ve been exposed to a few such codebases before. I certainly learned a lot about how NOT to design a project.
You’ve been at it longer than I have, but I’ve already had coworkers look at me like I’m a wizard for decoding their error message. You do get a feel for where the important parts of the error actually are over time. So much scrolling though…
Yes, I have my share of coworkers asking me when they run into problems, too. They even ask me when they have Windows problems. And I don’t do Windows - I do Linux and embedded systems.
Yes, after decades of scanning large pages of text - code, errors, logs, search results, etc - a programmers ability to apply pattern recognition to screens of letters can be truly remarkable.
MVC can be a great experience, especially with python dictionaries.
Learning how to get models and views together took some time, but after the second refactoring that week I managed to have neat objects for each MVC with clean interfaces. My biggest source in the app defines a requester with three columns of lists: a global category, then parts from that category, and finally the available colors for that part. Each of those views is an object, their interacting logic is an object, and finally the actual requester is an object, and this makes thing easy to handle.
Great!