c, assembly or java?

[_nox_]

pointer casting ? never heard of it ?

 

[philba]

I assume you are being forthright and not rude.

cast means to tell the compiler to use a different data type. in the case of a pointer, you are changing how the compiler views the memory pointed to. for example, you can cast a pointer to long (32 bit integer) as pointer to a byte array and then pull the bytes out of the long. diddle means to do something, typically a small thing. american slang, I think. no I didn't make it up.

the use in conversation part is fully up to you.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I assume you are being forthright and not rude.

Assuming you mean me?, I'm not been rude at all.

cast means to tell the compiler to use a different data type. in the case of a pointer, you are changing how the compiler views the memory pointed to. for example, you can cast a pointer to long (32 bit integer) as pointer to a byte array and then pull the bytes out of the long.

I know what casting is, perhaps the name comes from 'casting' when fishing?, not that I've ever been fishing!.

diddle means to do something, typically a small thing. american slang, I think. no I didn't make it up.

'Diddle' would be English slang for 'swindle' or 'defraud'.

the use in conversation part is fully up to you.

It was just the 'cast/diddle' together which intrigued me, I wondered if it had some specific meaning? - but it's basically just two words you happened to put together.

 

[kchriste]

It was just the 'cast/diddle' together which intrigued me

You can either cast or diddle your pointer but not both at the same time. LOL!

BTW, I always thought the term "tickle the accumulator" was funny.

--- "It's 11:00pm, do you know where your stack pointer is?"

 

[akg]

This was why Pascal was always the language of choice at University!.

not because of that , C can be considered as a powerful extention of pascal , or pascal is the little brother of C . so knowing pascal would ease in understanding C .
C is a Sea .

 

[philba]

huh, C was create in the late 60s. It grew out of language called B which was heavily influenced by a language called BCPL. Nicholas Wirt came up with pascal about 10 years later.

an old compiler writers joke:
Americans pronounce his name Nickle-less Worth. Eurpeans pronounce it Nick-laus Virt. Europeans call him by name, Americans call him by value.

sorry if you don't understand call-by-name vs call-by-value...

 

[BeeBop]

sorry if you don't understand call-by-name vs call-by-value...

har har! So are Europeans better at pointers?

If I'm not mistaken, PASCAL was developed as a teaching language. Wasn't it Wirth who also developed Modula, and as well Oberon?

 

[StopGo]

I know what casting is, perhaps the name comes from 'casting' when fishing?, not that I've ever been fishing!.

I think it stems from the use of 'cast' to mean 'mold' (or mould for the alternate English spelling),

e.g. cast or mould a featureless thing into something with form.

 

[akg]

don't forget the fact that m(b)illions of programs are there which were written in C, linux kernel is written in C , windows kernel is written in C , lot of multitasking OP are written in C . lot more C programmers than other types of programmers . well C is not a language like . it is meant for people who wish to have absolute control of the machine.

 

[_nox_]

it is meant for people who wish to have absolute control of the machine.

Sure? I'd say, ASM is meant for those...

 

[akg]

Sure? I'd say, ASM is meant for those...

sure..but you won't write a program for p4 in ASM

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

sure..but you won't write a program for p4 in ASM

Why not? - it's machine code that the P4 runs, so there's nothing to stop you writing in assembler.

 

[StopGo]

Why not? - it's machine code that the P4 runs, so there's nothing to stop you writing in assembler.

I write a lot of assembler for pentium class chips, recently have spent a lot of time trying to diagnose faults in a DPMI host. Yes amazing but DOS extenders are not dead yet.

I've been up to my eyeballs in protected mode memory management and interrupt code.. most of which is written in assembler. Course this is my job, don't think I would do it for fun

 

[akg]

Why not? - it's machine code that the P4 runs, so there's nothing to stop you writing in assembler.

yes..nothing stops you from writing p4 code in asm (or binary!! ). i was referring to the practical limits

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

yes..nothing stops you from writing p4 code in asm (or binary!! ). i was referring to the practical limits

Again, it's perfectly practical, like 'StopGo' actually does. It's probably slightly less practical writing code under Windows in assembler?, but if you junk Windows it's no different to writing code for any other processor in assembler.