Hobby languages
in [Cobol]
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From: Howard Brazee on 19 Jul 2010 11:44 I was thinking about my retirement, and I have written CoBOL programs that figured out puzzles and fun stuff. My choice of languages is based upon being a competent CoBOL programmer. Let's say I want to write a Sudoko puzzler, a Rubic's Cube solver, or a word puzzle solver. My home computer is a Mac and I expect this won't change when I retire. What languages would you recommend for such a person? -- "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department." - James Madison
From: Alistair on 19 Jul 2010 15:19 On Jul 19, 4:44 pm, Howard Brazee <how...(a)brazee.net> wrote: > I was thinking about my retirement, and I have written CoBOL programs > that figured out puzzles and fun stuff. My choice of languages is > based upon being a competent CoBOL programmer. > > Let's say I want to write a Sudoko puzzler, a Rubic's Cube solver, or > a word puzzle solver. My home computer is a Mac and I expect this > won't change when I retire. > > What languages would you recommend for such a person? > > -- > "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, > than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace > to the legislature, and not to the executive department." > > - James Madison Try z390 Assembler. It might work on Macs but you would be best advised to contact Don Higgins and ask him first. Also, you could try BEFUNGE. This is a language which deliberately obfuscates code so it could be fun. Finally, SQL can be used to write a Sudoku solver (I have the code somewhere). You would probably need the free version of MS SQL Server. Wikipedia has a page devoted to a listing of different languages and their attributes (Sorry but I couldn't find it but it is in the other Wiki sections).
From: robertwessel2 on 19 Jul 2010 18:23 On Jul 19, 10:44 am, Howard Brazee <how...(a)brazee.net> wrote: > I was thinking about my retirement, and I have written CoBOL programs > that figured out puzzles and fun stuff. My choice of languages is > based upon being a competent CoBOL programmer. > > Let's say I want to write a Sudoko puzzler, a Rubic's Cube solver, or > a word puzzle solver. My home computer is a Mac and I expect this > won't change when I retire. > > What languages would you recommend for such a person? For such tasks, a functional language like Haskell would probably be your best bet.
From: Pete Dashwood on 19 Jul 2010 19:02 Howard Brazee wrote: > I was thinking about my retirement, and I have written CoBOL programs > that figured out puzzles and fun stuff. My choice of languages is > based upon being a competent CoBOL programmer. > > Let's say I want to write a Sudoko puzzler, a Rubic's Cube solver, or > a word puzzle solver. My home computer is a Mac and I expect this > won't change when I retire. > > What languages would you recommend for such a person? Why not do it in COBOL if that is what you are comfortable with? (COBOL stringing/unstringing facilities might be very useful for a word puzzler...) Procedural things like puzzle solving can be adequately done in COBOL although the solution may take a little more writing than in another language. The real challenge is in devising the solution algorithm. Once you have done that, as Sir Ernest Rutherford remarked: "The rest is stamp collecting." Really, it is only the user interface that might be easier in something like ..NET or VB. I would write the "engine" as separate from the interface (communicate through a single block (to simplify parameter passing) that contains data and response), and then you can plug it into a web page or the desktop. Pete. -- "I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
From: Richard on 20 Jul 2010 01:02
On Jul 20, 3:44 am, Howard Brazee <how...(a)brazee.net> wrote: > I was thinking about my retirement, and I have written CoBOL programs > that figured out puzzles and fun stuff. My choice of languages is > based upon being a competent CoBOL programmer. > > Let's say I want to write a Sudoko puzzler, a Rubic's Cube solver, or > a word puzzle solver. My home computer is a Mac and I expect this > won't change when I retire. > > What languages would you recommend for such a person? OpenCOBOL is free and is alleged to run on a Mac. http://www.opencobol.org/ I would suggest that you could run it under a web server to give a user interface on the browser. SVG graphics is supported by Safari. If you want a different language then I use Python for most everything and it runs on almost every machine from phones to supercomputers. |