Object Oriented Programming | Page 4 | Forex Factory

Options

Go to
Permalinks
Print Thread

Similar Threads

Object-Oriented Programming 4 replies

Become Your Best Trader: Process-oriented Trading Goals 0 replies

MLQ4 check if object selected 2 replies

user selection of Object color 2 replies

Left align object descriptions in MT4? 0 replies

Object Oriented Programming

  • #61
  • May 6, 2010 10:44am May 6, 2010 10:44am
I know that strings are represented as arrays of bytes (or chars) but I see no reason for not making strings an integral part of the language. One can still access individual characters or even cast it to an array of bytes if this is needed (encryption algorithms that do numerical operations on the ascii values, etc.), but for most other uses I want to just use them on a higher level of abstraction and let the runtime library care about the details of memory allocation, copying and reference counting, the string routines in the runtime library are written in hand crafted assembler but I don't need to know this for using it.

Quoting nubcake
a few things. the point of C is that it's a half-way point between ASM and higher languages like VB and Pascal etc.
Pascal is just as low level as C (you can do everything you can do in C, you can even seamlessly mix in assembler statements), but it provides a higher degree of type safety by default (the compiler is very strict an will complain more often and unorthodox typecasts and pointer arithmetic must be explicitly declared) and it has more powerful language constructs for often needed things like strings and arrays, so you are not forced (or even encouraged) to go to the lowest level when you don't want or need to do so.

I use Pascal (Free Pascal) for most things where other people use C++ and I'm very happy with it. I haven't yet missed one single feature.
  • #62
  • May 6, 2010 10:51am May 6, 2010 10:51am
Quoting 7bit
I know that strings are represented as arrays of bytes (or chars) but I see no reason for not making strings an integral part of the language. One can still access individual characters or even cast it to an array of bytes if this is needed (encryption algorithms that do numerical operations on the ascii values, etc.), but for most other uses I want to just use them on a higher level of abstraction and let the runtime library care about the details of memory allocation, copying and reference counting, the string routines in the runtime library are...
You are missing the point some programmers dont want to be told by the compiler what they can and cant do, because they "might" cause a problem. Just like I wouldnt want a speed limiter on my ferrari (if I had one).
There is a reason most every important pieces of software written in the last 30 years was written in C or C++ and none in Pascal.
Economists have forecast 9 out of the last 5 recessions
  • #63
  • Edited 1:00pm May 6, 2010 12:23pm | Edited 1:00pm
Quoting markmm
There is a reason most every important pieces of software written in the last 30 years was written in C or C++ and none in Pascal.
The reason is not because the pascal compiler is strict and encourages good programming style and there is type safety. The reason why C++ came into widespread use is unknown. It must have been a tragic accident with catastrophic consequences. This bizarre Frankenstein monstrosity should have never escaped the laboratory! Nowadays it is used only because most others use it too, there is no technical reason.

In Pascal you are not forced to do things a certain way. You can do anything you want, just like in C, you just have to declare what you are wanting to do to allow the compiler to understand (and allow) it. You can cast a string pointer to an array pointer, you can do pointer arithmetics, you can do everything, you just have to declare what you are doing and the syntax for this is easy and clearly readable and as a side effect this also serves the purpose of documentation.

The Java compiler is just a strict as the pascal compiler and the C# compiler also and nobody complains. Everybody is happy with the type safety of .net and things like typesafe "managed pointers" are praised like they were the best invention since sliced bread. In fact we Pascal programmers have had typesafe Pointers since the 80's, nothing new, all our pointers are typed (unless we explicitly declare them otherwise).
  • #64
  • Edited 1:41pm May 6, 2010 1:23pm | Edited 1:41pm
Quoting 7bit
C/C++ are dangerous because although they are static languages they don't provide any sort of type safety, not even remotely.
I'm reticent to post on a 'language war' thread, but you demonstrate a stark lack of understanding in the above quote. C++ is type safe, if I write...

std::string x = 1;

it will not compile, and the complier will tell me why. All other points about pointers and memory are also straw man arguments, using modern C++ (using the standard library) one has no need to manually allocate and free memory. In fact, for server style applications the code one 'should' be writing in C++ is at just as higher level of abstraction as in C# or Java. You should get your facts correct before writing diatribes on why C++ is bad, or at least try studying the modern form of the language (i.e. post-1990).

Language arguments are lame, one uses the right tool for the right job, end of story.
The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
  • #65
  • May 6, 2010 1:43pm May 6, 2010 1:43pm
Poor Ronald! He keeps asking questions about OOP on MT and all we do is run a language war - which by the way it will never end. Ronald, maybe you should start another thread and hope we won't see it . Kidding aside...let's get the thread back on its feet.
Trading = a mirror to your human flaws. Fix them or be fixed.
  • #66
  • May 6, 2010 1:48pm May 6, 2010 1:48pm
It's interesting seeing the various viewpoints being shared here.

I've been googling terms, theories, etc. Just by looking at the language used, I can sorta glean an understanding of the author's point of view.

I've also started looking at some guides to OOP so I can at least understand the paradigm between MT5 and MT4.
  • #67
  • May 6, 2010 1:49pm May 6, 2010 1:49pm
Quoting 7bit
The reason is not because the pascal compiler is strict and encourages good programming style and there is type safety. The reason why C++ came into widespread use is unknown. It must have been a tragic accident with catastrophic consequences. This bizarre Frankenstein monstrosity should have never escaped the laboratory! Nowadays it is used only because most others use it too, there is no technical reason.
.
You obviously couldn't grasp C++, it is a complex language but very powerful as well as allowing you to produce software that run extremely fast. If you prefer languages with compliers and runtimes that hold your hand because you don't understand what your code is doing then thats fine. If you look at the Linux Kernel it is written in pure C, it has portions that are OO like the Virtual File System, so large complex system can be developed using C and in this case any other language would not be suitable.
Economists have forecast 9 out of the last 5 recessions
  • #68
  • Edited 3:50pm May 6, 2010 3:38pm | Edited 3:50pm
It is not about "holding hands" or not being able to "understand" ones own program. Programming is not a contest to find out who can write the same program with the most complicated tool with the biggest effort and the winner is the one who makes every boring string concatenation by hand. How often do I have to repeat this?

If you have fun messing around with memory allocation and pointers to character arrays then do it. I don't need to waste my time with this. I just write foo := 'bar' + 'baz'; and have it compile to optimized machine code automatically. The end result is exactly the same, I just haven't wasted a few minutes of my time per every string operation and I don't need to hunt memory leaks and potential buffer overflows with complicated external tools.

Quoting markmm
large complex system can be developed using C and in this case any other language would not be suitable.
I could write device drivers in Pascal, Ada, Fortran or whatever other systems programming language. The Oberon OS for example is written in Oberon. The only reason the whole linux kernel is in C is because Linus started it in C, all headers are now in C, everything is in C and for the gcc toolchain and Linus would not accept anything else. If the kernel were written in Pascal, in Oberon, in Modula or in Ada then all drvers were in Pascal or in Oberon or in Modula or in Ada. Probably less buggy, twice as efficient and more advanced also.
  • #69
  • May 6, 2010 4:05pm May 6, 2010 4:05pm
Quoting Craig
C++ is type safe
No.

C++ is THE textbook example of a language lacking even the most basic sort of type safety. Use google to educate yourself about what type safety is and why C++ is missing it.

Also the existence of some libraries to implement things that should be part of the language definition itself does not make the language any better, just a bit less complicated to use.
  • #70
  • May 6, 2010 4:24pm May 6, 2010 4:24pm
Quoting 7bit
If you have fun messing around with memory allocation and pointers to character arrays then do it. I don't need to waste my time with this. I just write foo := 'bar' + 'baz'; and have it compile to optimized machine code automatically. The end result is exactly the same, I just haven't wasted a few minutes of my time per every string operation and I don't need to hunt memory leaks and potential buffer overflows with complicated external tools.
So Valgrind is "complicated" lol now I know why you think C++ is too difficult. Hopefully someone will develop a programming language where you can point and drag big shapes so you can build programs without even using your tiny brain. Who cares if behind the scenes its the most inefficient piece of crap ever.
Economists have forecast 9 out of the last 5 recessions
  • #71
  • May 6, 2010 4:27pm May 6, 2010 4:27pm
Quoting 7bit
I could write device drivers in Pascal, Ada, Fortran or whatever other systems programming language. The Oberon OS for example is written in Oberon. The only reason the whole linux kernel is in C is because Linus started it in C, all headers are now in C, everything is in C and for the gcc toolchain and Linus would not accept anything else. If the kernel were written in Pascal, in Oberon, in Modula or in Ada then all drvers were in Pascal or in Oberon or in Modula or in Ada. Probably less buggy, twice as efficient and more advanced also.
All Unix, and most bits of WIndows are written in C also. But wait .... Oberon!!! I forgot about that.
Economists have forecast 9 out of the last 5 recessions
  • #72
  • May 6, 2010 4:33pm May 6, 2010 4:33pm
Quoting 7bit
No.

C++ is THE textbook example of a language lacking even the most basic sort of type safety. Use google to educate yourself about what type safety is and why C++ is missing it.

Also the existence of some libraries to implement things that should be part of the language definition itself does not make the language any better, just a bit less complicated to use.
Yawn....if you are determined to fixate on the fact that one can override the type system in C++ then this is your prerogative, this does not change the fact that one can still write perfectly type-safe code in C++.
The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
  • #73
  • May 6, 2010 4:42pm May 6, 2010 4:42pm
Quoting hanover
Nobody can call themselves a real programmer unless they've written assembly language on an IBM S/360.
Does writing a MIPS emulator and then write assembly code to run on it counts?
  • #74
  • May 6, 2010 5:24pm May 6, 2010 5:24pm
Quoting markmm
Who cares if behind the scenes its the most inefficient piece of crap ever.
I'll just give you a Linus quote: "For example, I personally believe that Visual Basic did more for programming than Object-Oriented Languages did. Yet people laugh at VB and say it's a bad language, and they've been talking about OO languages for decades. And no, Visual Basic wasn’t a great language, but I think the easy DB interfaces in VB were fundamentally more important than object orientation is, for example."

Google it for verification.

I code mostly in Python. I learned a long time ago not to care anymore about the efficiency of my code. And I do have the low-level skills to work with pointers/threads/SSE/GPU/whatever.

Now I just want to solve my problem the in the shortest time possible. My CPU has plenty of idle time to burn on Python. That's why I paid so much for it. But I don't have time anymore to do things the hard way (the C++ way).
  • #75
  • May 6, 2010 5:55pm May 6, 2010 5:55pm
Delphi wrapper over C++, my fav. With fastcall its almost as quick as C++. One of the benefits of OOP is inheritance, along with not having to rewrite alot of C code, which can also work against you, ...sorry if this was said already.
  • #76
  • May 6, 2010 6:01pm May 6, 2010 6:01pm
Quoting Adal
I'll just give you a Linus quote: "[i]For example, [b]I personally believe that Visual Basic did more for...
I think Linus was arguing against OO there which I agree with, he was being sarcastic in saying that VB with Access was simple access without layers of ORM and all the crap that comes with OO. Funnily enough he never used VB to program the linux kernel or Git his source control system.
Economists have forecast 9 out of the last 5 recessions
  • #77
  • May 6, 2010 6:12pm May 6, 2010 6:12pm
Quoting markmm
Funnily enough he never used VB to program the linux kernel or Git his source control system.
I guess that settles it. C is the only programming language that should be learned. From OS kernel, to web-sites, everything should be written in C. After all, the Google search engine is written in C++. Google and Linus can't be wrong. We should copy them. You never know when your little program will need to scale to serve billions of requests per day and run on huge clusters. Better be ready. C FTW.
  • #78
  • May 6, 2010 6:28pm May 6, 2010 6:28pm
Quoting Adal
I guess that settles it. C is the only programming language that should be learned. From OS kernel, to web-sites, everything should be written in C. After all, the Google search engine is written in C++. Google and Linus can't be wrong. We should copy them. You never know when your little program will need to scale to serve billions of requests per day and run on huge clusters. Better be ready. C FTW.
lol if you are writing a trading engine you need to be ahead of the comp, why start of in a losing position. I bet many of googles loser competitors were like you "Why bother being efficient just use the easiest language"
Economists have forecast 9 out of the last 5 recessions
  • #79
  • May 8, 2010 7:19pm May 8, 2010 7:19pm
Quoting Adal
Now I just want to solve my problem the in the shortest time possible. My CPU has plenty of idle time to burn on Python. That's why I paid so much for it. But I don't have time anymore to do things the hard way (the C++ way).
You aren't, by any chance, a Microsoft OS programmer?

(J/K. Seems the more powerful systems get, the more they want to take the easy route and slow our PCs down again. lol)
Bundy's status today: "Waiting..."
  • #80
  • May 9, 2010 8:04am May 9, 2010 8:04am
Quoting bundyraider
(J/K. Seems the more powerful systems get, the more they want to take the easy route and slow our PCs down again. lol)
Computing power is cheaper than manpower. And it does scale much better.

And OOP (which is the topic of this thread, btw.) on its own does not slow down computing in any way. OOP just provides language constructs that lets one express certain problems and their solutions in a different (and sometimes much simpler, much more elegant) way. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the generated code. Its just a different way to write things down on a higher level of abstraction.

Python is slow because the bytecode is interpreted by the VM instead of compiled. Other OO languages compile directly to native machine code and some of them don't have runtime garbage collectors and dynamic type systems (because these things are not necessarily needed for OO) and because their compilers can then work exactly like C-compilers just with a slightly different and advanced Syntax they can (and will) be just as fast and efficient as C or Assembler.

The need for better abstraction is the only reason why any high level programming languages (including C) have been invented at all.
0 traders viewing now