Watch your language!

Had a good convo on MSN last night with my Uni friends from Computer Science/Software Engineering. When talk turned to Andrew's blog post, Programming Uncertainty, we started to talk about Java, the next language we're learning next year (this year we learned C and Haskell).

I confirmed that indeed, Java doesn't compile .exe files (as far as I know... unless there's some wierd way to do it which doesn't involve writing a shell in C or another language). I know its for cross-platform (compile a .jar file, open it with the Java VM on any platform), but come on! You open .doc files in Word and open .jar files in Java VM? They aren't technically even applications, they're documents! I prefer .NET which has a similar requirement of a VM, but at least compiles to proper .exe files.

As Andrew said on his blog, French is sounding like a good option! (Ahh - jokes about the spoken languages vs programming languages, will you ever cease to amuse us?)

On a different topic, though, I found something I had been looking for for a while - using Haskell to compile Win32 DLLs, using GHC! <woot!> Haskell is a great language for writing complex algorithms without having to worry about memory management or array redimensioning, etc. As such its a bit slow, but theoretically, if used responsibly as only part of a program, it could make your program development more efficient. Hence compiling a DLL means you can call Haskell functions from C/C++, Visual Basic, or a .NET language. (Of course, only for Microsoft Windows.)
GHC User's Guide - Building and using Win32 DLLs

Well I'm going back to Managed C++ .NET anyway ;) Andrew - good luck with your chess program!

Toria found a funny article about Software Engineers - one of many I'm sure.
Real Software Engineers

This one isn't a Simpsons quote, but from another favourite animated series, Daria: (I had to steal this one off this site)

Detective: "Miss Morgendorffer, Mr. Stuart has no uncle at the hotel. He's been billing your parents' account for all these items, only to delete the charges later by breaking into the hotel's computer system."
Quinn: (gasps) "You mean... I... almost... went out with..."
Detective: "That's right."
Quinn: "A computer geek?!"