[de90]

That is in no way simpler, only faster. I have no experience with writing for C64, but to me at a quick glance it makes little sense just skimming over that.

Now take a language like RoR which I have never used. I can easily look at it and atleast kind of see what is going on.

The abstractions we have now atleast allow for code that can read like a book, and that is a lot less intimidating for someone trying to get started with programming.

[rjzzleep]

"I have no experience with writing for C64" ^^^^^^^^ ???

it is simpler. it's not as intuitive, because youre putting it in relation to your current experiences. your current experiences make it easy for you to understand ror. but now imagine you wanna change something in the actual ror stack. how simple does that become? not that simple anymore is it?

if you come from a different background and you look at functional programming languages you might say wow that's difficult. but similarly a guy that's only written functional code and looks at ror might say wow you're an idiot.

i hope you get the drift. it's just subjectivity youre talking about.

[de90]

The quoted line was from going back, editing, and even screwing that up. haha

I can see what you're saying. I still feel like intuitive code == simpler, but we'll have to agree to disagree.

This has made me more interested in diving in and learning some lower level stuff since you believe it is more simple. At the very least it'd be a great learning experience.

[angersock]

A wonderful resource in Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book ( http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-p... ); this gives you an appreciation for a lot of graphics and low-level issues (how to wrestle with VGA, etc.).

The problem with "intuitive code == simpler" is that it doesn't account for the scaffolding your intuitions are based upon. Like it or hate it, C is pretty straightforward in what it claims to do, and assembly moreso.

Remember that a machine is ultimately the world's stupidest idiot savant following your directions according to the rules of its hardware--any abstractions built atop it to make things "more intuitive" will only serve to shield you from the underlying simplicity of the system.

I'm not going to claim that high-level programming is anything other than a productivity boost, but I will state that for learning the system and writing system-friendly code you really need to be able to operate at a low level. Oftentimes, that low-level is very reasonable and as "intuitive" in its spartan domain as Ruby or something similar.

Unless you're the x86 isntruction set. Fuck that guy.

[de90]

Thank you for the link, I know what my next read will be!

[novalis]

Simpler/faster is relative and interpretative. I loved playing with machine code on the Commodore Amiga until I found out about assembler. Lacking in interpretation should not set the code reading skill entry level to some fashionable default. That is lazy and arbitrary, and just because someone likes the cozy space something like that creates, doesn't mean there isn't more out there. 90 is a nop. You build from that just as you would when reading about type reference. It is possible and rewarding. The other way is to abstract everything to the point you don't really know what you are doing while being fluent but oblivious to how confined you are.

[slurgfest]

If you have never used RoR, it's unlikely that you actually do see what is going on. But it's nice not to feel intimidated, I guess.