QB64 vs Python and a humble request

[Pete]

NO! That was MY Opinion! And you stole it!!!!!!! I mean shared it. :D

Wow, these extra-strength muscle relaxers are really kicking in...

Pete

[CBTJD]

Pete, you're a trip, Dude!

[CBTJD]

He doesn't know what to do because although he knows which buttons/switches to use, he doesn't know WHAT they do.
A person using libraries knows how to call the libraries, but not how or why it works.

Exactly right. And the very reason Chernobyl happened. Under-trained, night shift, flunkies who actually had to refer to the manuals to try to figure out why flash-filling the reactors with water creates explosive hydrogen gas. Hell, Jimmy Carter knew that! Of course, he's a degree-holding nuclear physicist - no kidding.

[Ashish]

Exactly! Kids are being taught to include libraries, call those libraries written by somebody else, and then believe they're programmers

I disagree with this. Why to create your own when there already exists a library for your task?
Creating a library when another library for same task already exists ,is a waste of time.
Of course, they should know what the library is doing in the background when they are not a *kid*.

[CBTJD]

I disagree with this. Why to create your own when there already exists a library for your task?
Creating a library when another library for same task already exists ,is a waste of time.
Of course, they should know what the library is doing in the background when they are not a *kid*.

Ah, I've had this debate before and handled it poorly. But I learned something I hope I can share:
For me, libraries are fine if you've used them before and know you can trust them. But every programmer should know HOW to write the code themselves if they have to. And education programs should promote the latter over the former so they're not just training button-pushers.

[SMcNeill]

I'm with Ashish.  Libraries keep us from having to know absolutely every little process, while allowing us to write functional applications.  Hell, QB64 itself could be considered nothing more than a single huge library.  Let's take the _LOADIMAGE command as an example -- who wants to sit and write the code from scratch to decipher a BMP image and put it on the screen.  Or a PNG image?  JPG? TIFF? GIF? Isn't it just simpler to load the various libraries and then let them handle all the decoding and format specifications??  Our sound, fonts, graphics, compression routines are all external libraries which we use, rather than trying to write our own. 

Writing your own routines don't mean that they're worth a hoot.  Take our keyboard routines as a perfect example -- Galleon tried to write his own after swapping out the SDL libraries, and they still don't work worth crap.  Keys are mismatched, ignored, double mapped...  Custom stuff that just doesn't work like it should.  A nice input library would probably work much better for us, in all honesty.

We don't need to know HOW _DEFLATE compresses files into a fraction of their size.  Let some fellow with 14 PHDs in compression theory sort out how the math and logic works to shrink a 100MB text file down to 1MB.  All we need to know is how to link to their work (in the case of _DEFLATE, we link to the ZLIB library), and make use of it in our personal projects and applications.

[CBTJD]

Another consideration for coding is efficiency. I grew up in the 1K RAM days when you had to get very creative to even get your program to FIT, much less work. So, just strictly due to my origins, I prefer to avoid libraries. But it is a valid concern regarding compression, encryption and image handling. I *DO* know how to do those things, AND I *CAN* write more efficient, better, and more accurate code than the libraries I've come across. Heck, the MOD function in the math module for Python v2 was wrong for nearly a year until someone pointed it out! And I've had to personally correct a developer on a Fibonacci functions library.

Regardless, this all reminds me of my high school electronics class when the teacher made us spend an entire week learning how to build discreet logic circuits and then told us afterwards, "Of course, me, I'd just use an open-collector quad 2-input NAND gate SN74LS01 chip with a SN74LS07 hex buffer gate, but now you know how the damn things work."

[William33]

I would say, it depends on the task. Apart from Python; imagine you have to code an accounting software with an SQL database and a report designer. I doubt anyone would start with the WinAPI (which also can be considered as a library)  wihtout using existing libraries.

[Ashish]

@[banned user]
I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just giving my point of view. I could be wrong as I have less experience from you all.
I would always prefer a library if it has all features which I need for my task.

For example:-
1. When I joined the forum 3 or 4 years back, the only GUI library I found was of RhoSigma.
I liked but I wanted a more windows-style form like GUI. I created mine aKFrameWork. But it was technical to use.
Soon, Fellippe came up with his InForm which have WYSIWYG capabilities. (In this case, I tried to create my own library.)

2. I recently created a 3D Grapher program. Now, this program need to evaluate an expression which include some mathematical
functions as well. I could code a library to this, but that would have taken  a lot of time. And I already knew about the
STxAxTIC's Sxript. So, I used it. (In this case, I used other person library.)

Also, think about it. Why library do exists? Just to make programmers life easier. :)

[Pete]

This discussion reminds me of one of my sayings, "Knowledge is power, but power is more useful." On the side of learning, coding with  higher level languages improves understanding, and using libraries increases productivity, but at some cost of customization. That's the part that I really dislike.

As a kid, I played a lot with tinker toys, instead of pre-made models. I built skyscrapers, ships, towns, etc., piece by piece. I preferred using my imagination and believed I could build anything I reasonably imagined, and did just that. I think I feel the same when it comes to programming. Frankly, if I had to use 90% library calls to make my projects, I'd probably never even bother starting one. Some people would be just the opposite, which is something remarkable about programming, it can satisfy both factions.

I do think taking the ability to understand how to code is like throwing the baby out of the bathwater. I would rather see schools continue to teach the fundamentals, if for no other purpose than developing minds.

Pete

- And for all you people out there on a diet, don't forget: A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

[Larryrl]

I agree whole heartedly. It shouldn't be like exploratory surgery just to create a for next loop. And what is with all of "new stuff"? Now days you gotta say myfilestream=new filestream, or some such. At least in C sharp and python anyways. If QB64 just had easier ways to access some of gui tools like textboxes and listboxes etc, it would be a lot better.

[Pete]

I agree whole heartedly. It shouldn't be like exploratory surgery just to create a for next loop. And what is with all of "new stuff"? Now days you gotta say myfilestream=new filestream, or some such. At least in C sharp and python anyways. If QB64 just had easier ways to access some of gui tools like textboxes and listboxes etc, it would be a lot better.

Have you tried INFORM? https://www.qb64.org/forum/index.php?board=11.0

Pete