[Ezekiel Macallister]

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Last post:

Variables are temporariy in memory until the program ends so if you need to persist the information for recall later you need to write it out to some sort of file.

[courtnay]

Ok, I have 2 different textboxes. each one has different information. Can I save them both in one text file then load them to both of the textboxes?

Sorry about my frequent questions, I'm fairly new to C#.

[MatthewJontully]

I don't know much about C#, but you should be able to. You just need to distinguish them somehow so when you parse the file later they won't be lumped in the same textbox.

[Tamara Dost]

Yes, look up StreamReader and StreamWriter on MSDN it even has simple examples on how to do that. I would have to dig out an old project to get some of my own examples but they probably also are a bit beyond the scope of what you need.

[Hearts]

I couldn't find any tutorials on MSDN for what I'm trying to do.

@DarkOneVenzar you mentioned earlier that you had some examples. Could you please post one?

[Batricia Alele]

Finally decided to learn GUI programming in C++. Any suggestions for a library? I'm looking at qt right now, seems decent.

[Fam Mughal]

I thought I'd try to branch out from XNA and C# so I started a new project using Java and LWJGL. It amazes me how similar the syntax is but I'm having to rebuild a lot of the stuff that came with XNA from scratch. It's taking a lot of getting used to but at least I managed to get a couple of sprites on screen spinning around.

[David John Hunter]

If anyone is interested I am working on a subnetting practice application in Python 3.2, though I may switch to a C# console application using .NET, to practice subnetting and potentially offer to a former teacher for his students since I need practice subnetting for an exam. Anyone who would be interested in testing or helping me write this is welcome.

[jaideep singh]

In the official Python 3.2.2 documentation it says you can make .exe files using the freeze module which gets installed by the Python installer, if I read it correctly, but I do not see this module. I looked into cx_freeze which is supposed to take Python scripts and make an .exe of them but it adds other files that are required when I was hoping to keep it as compact as possible. Other than just distributing the.py files does anyone have any recommendations for deploying Python scripts? I had quite a bit of the code done in C# of the same program but did notbring my code, however I eventually want both finished. I figure if I can make an .exe of the Python script it would be simpler to share as opposed to the .NET version.

[Amy Siebenhaar]

All the Python exes I have made with have ended up being about 10mb. It is possible to condense it with a something like upx but it has to contain the virtual machine which is always going to have some bulk.

I haven't used python3 at all, so can't comment on the use of that module.

[Svenja Hedrich]

That size is not an issue to me even if they are a bit larger. py2exe is most commonbut I am working in Python 3 so it is not applicable.

[Trey Johnson]

I want to start learning programming, and I'm uncertain if I should go with Java or C++. What's the differences, etc and what should I go with? My friend started with C++ and is now doing Java (making a game last I heard) and he said Java is better, but I wanted the internet's opinion. I'll probably pick up a book to teach me/look around the internet. So?

[Ricky Rayner]

I would vote for C++ but it also might be a bit tough for a starting language. Python could be a good starting place or if you want tied to Microsoft Visual Basic wouldn't be too tough to start with, however I am not a fan of VB myself but rather C#.

[Laura Simmonds]

Why is it that I can read and understand almost any programming language but the documentation looks like it was written in an obscure dialect of ancient Romulan?

[Monika Fiolek]

Java, in my opinion, is easier to learn. But I'd also vote for C++, because C++ is awesome.

[Cool Man Sam]

Hmm... any reason why C++? I'm not to familiar with programming terms, so layman terms please I'd prefer to delve into the harder stuff head first, even if there is a steep learning curve

[Isaac Saetern]

You can do bigger projects with C++. And I think C++ is less notepad and more other stuff.

[Katie Louise Ingram]

If you had said C++ was less enterprisy you would have made more sense . There are huge projects in both C++ and Java. You just probably haven't directly used a large Java program.


C++ is a horrible language as far as complexity and design goes.
No one uses Java except for enterprise stuff.
Learn Python. It has less horrible bits and is easier, faster to develop with and error messages are sane (most of the time).

[Steve Fallon]

I have to agree with the Python suggestion, I may have even mentioned it before.It is pretty easy to pick up and seems pretty powerful from the few things I have done with it. Though making a GUI is a bit of a challenge.

[Hannah Barnard]

To elaborate, it depends on the scope of the variable, the type of data stored in the variable (object or scalar / reference type or value type, etc.), and the language you're using. In most languages variables can have a lifetime of a single procedure call, the lifespan of a single object ("member variables" or "fields"), the lifespan of the process/application (often referred to as "globals" and should almost never be used), or the lifespan of a thread.

Value types like numeric values and (in many languages) strings and simple structures can actually be thought of as "stored" in the variable. Reference types like complex structures and those that also contain behaviors (classes) cannot be thought of that way. When you store an instance of a class, or object, in a variable you're actually only storing a reference to the object. The object itself is stored in a mechanism that's often called a "heap." This trips up a lot of developers that are new to object-oriented programming...some people have a difficult time understanding the difference between a reference to an object and an instance of an object.

One is not "better" than the other. They're different tools used for different purposes. If your purpose is to learn about programming without jumping headlong into arcane syntax and lower-level concepts like memory addresses and bitwise operations then I'd say that Java is the better of the two tools. Python is fun too. As others have mentioned, though, if you're trying to develop skills that translate into enterprise IT applications then Java is probably a better bet. I wouldn't agree that nobody uses Java outside of the enterprise, though. Most smartphone apps are developed on platforms that are at least derivatives of Java, and a ton of cross-platform open-source tools that I use personally are developed in Java. It's only the most-used language on the planet.

That said, I actually like C# better than Java. Don't tell anyone!

No offense, but neither of these statements make a lick of sense.

[Alister Scott]

Bigger project = less notepad. Every programmer worth their salt knows the BPELN rule.

[Britta Gronkowski]

Ooooh, that one. Where I'm from it's referred to as the UNOBPEPS (Using Notepad On Big Project Equals Programmer Suicide) rule.

[Mark Hepworth]

I have never heard of it. That said, I don't use many operating systems with notepad installed

[Guinevere Wood]

This should be prefaced with "In most garbage collected languages". Languages like C++ it is possible (and obviously preferred) to allocate memory for objects on the stack.

Ak. I forgot about smartphones.

But if you look at most open source projects, the newer ones tend not to be in Java. (Excluding Android stuff). Not to say there aren't notable open source Java projects, but it isn't the language that most people chose to develop in (for obvious reasons when you look at Ruby and Python).

But yeah, you make a good point. But if learning for fun I would pick a more fun language than Java. If you become even just a decent programmer picking up Java should be trivial (Like a day to get yourself around the core concepts at max).

[Sarah MacLeod]

Yes, learn Python.

I'm back on some Android development after several months of almost exclusively Python. Java is just horrible. So verbose.