The main purpose of this site is to have a place to post my some of my code. The amount of code that I can maintain on this host is limited to a few megabytes.
I will add more examples later as space allows.
Objective-C is a computer language that is not the latest word in object oriented programming. It is the newest incarnation of the NextStep stuff which, in turn, was kludged up from SmallTalk. However, Apple is using it along with the Cocoa application framework as it primary tool for developing application. The development tools for Mac Os X are free and they compare quite well with other development suites in terms of functionality. The Apple developer tools do need work though.
I have recently acquired an Apple computer and am having all sorts of fun programming it. I'm an old UNIX hacker from way back and Mac Os X inclusion of BSD is far superior to any version of Linux and it is much less onerous than Wintel boxes.
As I get more into Apple world I suspect that I will be posting more Objective-C/Cocoa examples and probably some Carbon and AppleScript later on.
C++ is probably the most practical language for object oriented programming. Also most of the really advanced programming, e.g., meta-programming, is being done in C++. The language has evolved over time and is now very stable. The code that I include on my C++ page is written in MS VC++6.0 (which is almost compliant to the standards) and uses Win32 extensively.
I have avoided the use of MFC for a number of reasons. The MFC view of the software universe is that everything is a file maintenance application. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have found the 'model view controller' paradigm more useful. I have read and worked through two texts on MFC, each over one thousand pages long, to get very little in the way of results. I am convinced that MFC increases programmer labor and has a negative impact on program maintenance. On the other hand Win32 is a typical event-driven callback scheme. Its short coming is that it is very procedural. However, most of it is quite static and C++ can be used to wrap what is objectionable.
The BASIC programming language has been around since the mid 60's and has seen many incarnations. MS Visual Basic, or VB as its called, is one of them. My interest in VB, as a programmer, is that it is a generally useful tool on Wintel platforms. VB as a stand alone language is quite powerful and can be used to construct sophisticated applications. (I have been payed actual money to write some!) In addition to this all the MS Office tools use a variant of VB as their macro programming language. This gets you programmatic control over MSWord, MSAccess, MSPowerPoint etc. I thought that a few examples would be nice.
I am Jim De Spears. I usually make my living as a software engineer, but I have many other interest. These interest include rocket science, quantum physics, mathematics, image processing and other things. Computer programming and software engineering in general has given me the opportunity to pursue all these areas in 'where the rubber meets the road' kind of way. For some details see the C. V. I can be reached by e-mail at jimd@surfnetusa.com
© 2003 J. L. De Spears