The Engineering Thread

Newb

Linux Rules!
I am looking forward to bringing in my Linux laptop into college this year.

Barry Aldwell

Jim_No.6 wrote:

You guys got SubEthaEdit?! :eek:


Edit: And he showed you how to use 'make'? Unbelievable!

Lucy Hederman is teaching 1E3, or at least she has for the past 2 years.

Yeah, subethaedit to type up programs (for the last year, before that she told people to use something else, the name of which eludes me at the moment.....), then open terminal, make and ./

A VERY large amount of people had trouble with the basic concept of terminal (being very much used to the point and click windows environment). If you have no trouble with terminal, then by all means use a spoon account for your programming (the examiners don't care what it runs on, once it's written in C++). But bear in mind that the macs use an older version of GCC, which doesn't support some features, so you may have examiners saying "Why did you put that in, it doesn't work in anybody else's program"

xebec

LiouVille wrote:

I'm telling yea, they don't have mick

Correct, it wasn't the fabulous Mr Brady, but some other pleasant lady who really knew what she was doing...

Crash

Barry Aldwell wrote:

Lucy Hederman is teaching 1E3, or at least she has for the past 2 years.

*shudders*
*vomits*

Jim_No.6

Nietzschean wrote:

actually i don't think it would cost anything more given trinity's site licences to have IDE's on every pc machine, though i believe they are there already(well public in ham end and cs ones).

But regardless, i'm guessing they make them use mac's because they don't have unix boxes to make them use, its to get people used to different things. And IDE's are only usefull for some stuff, and arn't really beneficial for doing helloworld type apps(unless you are so lazy as to use insert function features...)

Have you even actually used Visual C++ - or at least Microsoft's compiler? :eek:

Barry: BBEdit Lite - It wasn't Notepad, but it was close.

Newb: Look forward to connecting to the college network so! (In fact, putting together a howto here might be a good idea)

Boston

&#231 wrote: »

*shudders*
*vomits*

Ah, she seems like a ride.

I wouldn't. Mike Brady for the win!

Edit: I bet he reads boards...

Nietzschean

Jim_No.6 wrote:

Have you even actually used Visual C++ - or at least Microsoft's compiler? :eek:

Errr pretty extensively on both counts.

Jim_No.6

Nietzschean wrote:

Errr pretty extensively on both counts.

Lucky you!

Personally, I've found that ming / gcc far more user-friendly

Nietzschean

i haven't used ming, more often than not i rather power to user friendlyness anyway, i do the vast majoirty of my dev using vim.

Newb

I have used both Visual C++ and GCC and I too prefer GCC since it
doesn't go mad like Visual C++ with workspace settings and compilation
leftovers.

When I use GCC for a simple program I get what I asked for and a
directory of files that are less than 100KB in total size. When I use
Visual C++, I get MBs of useless stuff. I know you may argue that these
files speed up future compilations but if I am writing a heavy program,
I will break down the code into separate .c/.cpp files and compile them
individually - when required - and link them together with MAKE.

Endymion

VC++ is a pain in the balls to use. I advise Dev C++ for anyone looking for a C++/C IDE on the PC.

Crash

I find vc++ grand to use tbh. just ignore half the ****e and you've got a basic C++ IDE. sorted.

Nietzschean

exactly as neil said, if you don't want/need the advanced features, just start a basic c++ console app and start typing, hit ctrl+f5 and boom it makes the exe....

as for using a few megs, in this day in age is that really such a problem?

Endymion

Nietzschean wrote:

exactly as neil said, if you don't want/need the advanced features, just start a basic c++ console app and start typing, hit ctrl+f5 and boom it makes the exe....

as for using a few megs, in this day in age is that really such a problem?

I can't remember the name of the labs now, there the prefab ones, and when you try to run C++ you'd be sitting there for a half hour.

Jim_No.6

It is if you don't know what you're doing, and haven't a clue what all the various files are/do.

I think that it's much cleaner for a beginner to see (source)->{compile}->(executable) than for it to generate a big 'ol pile of rubbish as well.

Carnivore wrote:

I can't remember the name of the labs now, there the prefab ones, and when you try to run C++ you'd be sitting there for a half hour.

And that's just for Visual to load!



In conclusion - Computer users are both opinionated and argumentative, and won't leave you alone if they think that you are doing something wrong*


Shall we just end this silly debate, and go back to useful advice? We're getting nowhere




*where by that, I mean suboptimally

Nietzschean

Carnivore wrote:

I can't remember the name of the labs now, there the prefab ones, and when you try to run C++ you'd be sitting there for a half hour.

yeah i do remember that, though i've only used the comp labs for programming a hand full of times i normally do labs at home or bring my laptop...

Newb

Nietzschean wrote:

as for using a few megs, in this day in age is that really such a problem?

I used to go IT Blanchardstown and the maximum amount of storage we
were given was 30MB. (This does generally be enough until you need to
save lecture notes and and other large files on your storage space at the end of the year).

In ITB, during breaks, you can use a computer in a classroom if there
are no classes at the time in that room. The problem with this is that
at any moment a class can start and you have to leave straight away. All
this happens a lot so it is wise to save all your work to your storage
and not to the local drive in case you have to flee. Visual C++ used to eat a lot of my space when I was writing a
program and I used to get memory problems because of this - even if I
deleted older program assignments from my storage.

I now use a 1GB portable flash drive but I am still carrying bad
memories of Visual C++.

xebec

Newb wrote:

In ITB, during breaks, you can use a computer in a classroom if there are no classes at the time in that room. The problem with this is that
at any moment a class can start and you have to leave straight away.

Same thing happens here, although usually there's a timetable on the door of the room. Not uncommon to find it hard to get at a computer, especially at lunch and other busy times.

Newb

xebec wrote:

Same thing happens here, although usually there's a timetable on the door of the room. Not uncommon to find it hard to get at a computer, especially at lunch and other busy times.

We have the timetables in ITB also but they are all a year or two out of date.