Is HMG "For the Programmer by the Programmer"?

[sudip]

Hi All,

Sorry for another "meaningless" topic.

When I learned Unix about 18 years back, I heard "Unix is for the Programmers, by the Programmers". That means, it is not very easy for general users (like me ). But, now things have been changed. I haven't checked *nix O/s for 5/6 years, but heard they become very easy now a days

IMHO, HMG is one of the easiest languages, ever born in the world From one of Master Roberto's messages (a few months ago) I learned, some "really" complex Windows API are hidden under the hood of easy pseudo oop language!!! But did it reduce it's power?

I am not comfortable with _HMG.... arrays , and sometimes I am thinking those arrays have the real power I wish if I can also use those _HMG.... arrays like my friends and experts Don't worry, it's my general psychology!!! When I wrote C programs, I wished to write embedded Assembly codes!!! One thing I am certain, simple is beautiful, but is it powerful? Every person, has different meaning for "power". To me, it means flexibility and easiness

Does a language need to be cryptic (a good example will be some c codes, written by real experts ), to be powerful?

(One of my friends, told me, "You don't have to encrypt your C source code, because nobody can understand this, including you ")

I want to end this post again by remembering Unix (Today, one of Master Roberto's posts recall my old love for Unix). Today with Windows world I very much miss the very powerful Shell Script language of Unix and feel sometimes things made for programmers are also very simple and powerful

Thank you very much for reading this "meaningless" topic upto this

With best regards.

Sudip

[Rathinagiri]

For normal operations and software, we don't require assembly language or machine language level.

For some special software, we may require going deep (for example IDE).

I wonder many times, why this listview control (which is the basis for our grid) is not improved that much in various windows versions.

Also, I wish to have drag and drop facility in HMG.

Sorry Sudip, I think it is not a reply to your message but a wishlist.

[sudip]

Hi Rahi,

Thanks a lot for your view.

For some days I was looking for a function equivalent to our GetFolder() function, which can be used with my xHarbour+gtwvw app. Gtwvw doesn't have this function. Recently, one xHarbour user advised me to use What32 library. But, I don't have the library. I have to compile the contrib What32. Again there was a problem. It needs Tasm32.exe to compile I didn't have that. I downloaded it and created What32 library. And finally my gtwvw app worked today with shbrowseforfolder() function

I am telling you (and all other friends) this personal experience because, sometimes we (at least myself) don't realize the complexities under our familiar HMG shell. Thanks a lot Master Roberto again.

If there is any HMG user, who is also using (or used) gtwvw library like me, there is a good news. Harbour developers are working to port gtwvw. Harbour 2.0 has some gtwvw examples also

Finally, I think this forum (General Discussion) of HMGForum is a window where we can share our views with our friends. Sometimes, our "reply"s are not reply in the true sense. But, we all like to have others views, as "We are on the same boat brother"

With best regards.

Sudip

[Ricci]

I want to end this post again by remembering Unix (Today, one of Master Roberto's posts recall my old love for Unix). Today with Windows world I very much miss the very powerful Shell Script language of Unix and feel sometimes things made for programmers are also very simple and powerful

Did you ever tried Windows Powershell? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell

[Roberto Lopez]

Hi All,
Sorry for another "meaningless" topic.

These are the best post!

I'm not exactly answer you, but your post inspired me to say something

I want to make HMG more powerful too, but I don't want to 'up' operating system internals to the final user (the HMG programmer) to achieve that.

I could write hundred samples about this (hopefully I'll take two or three only ).

The font name, size and style are attributes of almost any GUI object.

The operating system, requires that you create a font object specifying name, size and style, then the system returns you a handle, then, you must 'attach' that handle to a particular GUI object.

The problem is that such way is unnatural and is tied to operating system internal logic.

You should be able to describe the attributes for a GUI object naturally, ie: its font face name and size, directly as object properties...

The same is applicable to lots of things usually exposed in most GUI libraries (handles, ids, imagelists, brushes,etc.).

The bottom line is, to get power is not needed to expose system complexities, that can be done in an elegant and 'nice' way.

IMHO the belief that to get power and efficiency in a programming tool, it must be obscure and difficult is FALSE.

IMHO (again ) HMG is a demonstration of that. It is simple, powerful and fast.

It could be more powerful of course, but improvements will be done according its basic philosophy: easy to use, without exposing OS internals.

[Rathinagiri]

Thanks Roberto and Sudip.

[Vanguarda]

Hello friends,

Great topic Sudip, very interesting.

My best regards,

[sudip]

Hello Vanguarda, Rathi,
Thanks for your kind words. All credit of this interesting topic goes to our Master

Hello Master Roberto,

Thanks for the explanation I have one wish also. If I were a student in your "physical" classroom also

One question is coming to my mind, and may be you already answered it many times to many persons. It came to my mind within 1st few days when I came to know about Minigui. Why HMG is semi object oriented? If it is "more" object oriented, we can use Window object, Controls object etc. Please don't be disturbed. I am asking you as a learner. (IMHO, fully object oriented language is difficult to use. Eg., Java. Writing a simple scanf() type input app requires lots of skills with Java )

I answered myself - if HMG was "more" object oriented, it would become more complex, especially lots of overhead, which would make it slow and memory hungry I am not sure whether I am correct or wrong. Please correct me if I am wrong

Regarding "power", a small analogy came to my mind. It's like "muscle power" and "brain power". Muscle power of a programming language is like low level programming. And Brain Power of a language is like it's easiness, efficiency, flexibility.

And we all know which is more powerful .....

Besides that, we always have scope to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, using

Code: Select all

#pragma BEGINDUMP
...
...
#pragma ENDDUMP

Sometimes it is required. But, it's like Anti-biotic medicine, least is the best

With best regards.

Sudip

[sudip]

...
Did you ever tried Windows Powershell? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell

Thanks a lot Ricci I didn't know it. I went to Wiki as per your given URL. It's really good.
With best regards.
Sudip

[Ricci]

One question is coming to my mind, and may be you already answered it many times to many persons. It came to my mind within 1st few days when I came to know about Minigui. Why HMG is semi object oriented? If it is "more" object oriented, we can use Window object, Controls object etc. Please don't be disturbed. I am asking you as a learner. (IMHO, fully object oriented language is difficult to use. Eg., Java. Writing a simple scanf() type input app requires lots of skills with Java )

I answered myself - if HMG was "more" object oriented, it would become more complex, especially lots of overhead, which would make it slow and memory hungry I am not sure whether I am correct or wrong. Please correct me if I am wrong

Have you ever tried XBase++ ? It´s a full object oriented GUI-Clipper language. It´s really powerfull and fast but you need a lot of code and work to write a small program.

I wrote the same program in XBase++ and HMG, needed some days and 200 kB code in XBase++, but only 1 day and 20 kB code in HMG.