Re: HPGCC Questions ladies and gentlemen!!!

Claudio Lapilli <pleasedontspam@xxxxxxx> wrote:
: Hello,

: Frank Pittel wrote:

: <...>

: >
: > No matter how you slice it in order to compile a C program you need to know
: > how to compile it, and that means learning how to use the tools. Whether
: > that tool is a CLI or GUI is irrelevent.

: In my case, it took a few hours just to get gcc running in my computer
: (non-Unix) for the first time. That time included reading several
: manuals to find out what environment variables to setup, etc. That's
: also included in "not-so-friendly". Maybe it was just my personal
: experience but I'm not exactly a rookie and it took me a decent time to
: figure it out.

Where did you get the gcc package for windows from? A number of years ago
I installed the windows port of gcc (it wasn't called gcc and I don't
remember what they called it anymore) that I got from gnu. It installed
cleanly with no environmental variables to worry about.

: <...>

: >
: > I'm not following you. What's hard about typing "gcc hello.c"???

: Maybe it's just me but I never get what I want unless I specify several
: options in the command line. Just to make a point, here is a typical
: command line to compile an hpgcc program:

: arm-elf-gcc -fno-inline -mtune=arm920t -mcpu=arm920t -msoft-float
: -mthumb-interwork -mapcs-32 -mlittle-endian -fomit-frame-pointer -Wall
: -O3 -I%_DISK:\hpgcc\include -L%_DISK:\hpgcc\lib -c %1 -o
: %@path[%1]%@name[%1].o

: And you still need to link it!!
: Sorry, but to me it doesn't look very "friendly". I admit that this is
: gcc for ARM, the PC version needs less arguments, but I always needed
: something (for which you need to read a long manual). On an IDE like
: MS, you just press F5 and it's done.

Does your ms ide execute the hpgcc compiler? If not this is an apples to
oranges comparison. Have you tried setting up a make file to launch hpgcc?
All you would need to type then is "make".

: <...>

: >
: > While I do like the syntax highlighting I get with the GNU version of vi
: > that I use. The rest I've found slows me down and based on what I saw
: > of the students that used an ide in the c++ class I took a few years ago.

: How can a color slow you down? I just don't get it. Parenthesis and
: bracket matching is very useful to prevent errors. Autocompletion of
: class members saves you days of work going through docs trying to get
: the right spelling for each member or method. Same thing for function
: arguments dynamic help. It simply saves a lot of time, I don't see how
: it can slow you down.

I never stated that the color slowed me down.

: > I'm convinced that learning c (or c++) by working with an ide slows down
: > the learning process rather that speeding it up. In the class I was in
: > the students used the ide as a crutch and it interfered with them learning
: > the language. I went through the class with my trusty vi and gcc!! :-)

: > Since we're talking about beginers I would rather see a beginer struggle a
: > bit looking for bugs in their beginer level programs with the use of printf
: > statements and a liberal amount of head scratching then stepping through the
: > code in a gui debbuger. In my never humble opinion more is learned that way
: > and the lessons learned tend to stay with that person longer.

: In my opinion you learn just the same, except that it will be harder to
: know the cause of a crash if you can't see exactly what's going on.
: Your printf() statements are nothing but a very primitive data
: inspector, so why not use a data inspector if it's available?

What kind of program written by beginner is going to "crash"? If you ask me
it's a sad state of affairs when a programmer needs a gui to see how the
program he's written works. Shouldn't a programmer know how the program works?
I know that a printf doesn't provide the information in a nice pretty gui
but it does a good job of outputting variable values. For the types a programs
a beginner is going to be writing the information provided by printf will be
all that's needed.

: So let me see if I understand you:
: * You use an editor with syntax hilighter but you claim it makes people
: slower.

Not at all.

: * You prefer to type "gcc hello.c" every time instead of pressing one
: key from within the text editor (which would make it an IDE).

Only if the name of the source file is hello.c.

: * You like to see the content of your variables with printf() but not
: using a data inspector.

Not at all. The types of programs written by a beginner learning the langauage
don't need any more then printf statements and in the long run will learn
the langauge faster and become a better programmer using them in the begining.
Once they get past the beginer stage and are writting programs more complex then
beginner level programs they will be able to make efficient use of debuggers.


--




-------------------
Keep working millions on welfare depend on you
.

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