C's Big Brother is Lurking !

[Mel Smith]

Hi:

For those of you who wish to use the C language at a slightly higher
level, please drop in to the following newsgroup:

comp.lang.xharbour

The xHarbour language is based on C and uses a variety of C
implementations to compile and link its applications. There are a several
GUI packages (free and commercial) to build your apps.

This language is based on the several xBase languages of ten years ago,
and has brought together the best features of all of them, and exposes
hundreds of C functions in a very easy C-like syntax:

Function main()

local cVrbl := "crackpot" // 'local' vrbl only accessible in
this function

private cAnotherVrbl := "nutcake" // 'private' vrbl avail
here and all functions below

CLS // Clears the terminal screen

? "I'm assessed mentally as : " + cVrbl // kicks up a line
and prints

? "I'm also known as a : " + cAnotherVrbl // kicks up anotyher
line and prints

/*
and of course, there are zillions of non-trivial features using
C and Databases where you can
become quickly productive and make a good living in our
language.
We have about 400 separate tests available for download to
demonstrate the *power* of
this language
*/

return nil

There are native built-in Comix databases available for your use, and a
variety of 'SQL' databases easily linkable to your apps.

You can also include C functions as part of your source code.

So, if you wish to quickly build an application based on C, then
xHarbour is the way to go.

To download the latest implementation of xHarbour:

- Visit www.whosaway.com
- Enter the Password: XHB

Better still, visit www.xharbour.com for support, documentation, and
help on Extended Harbour (xHarbour).


-Mel Smith
webmaster
www.whosaway.com

 

[MikeP]

Hi:

For those of you who wish to use the C language at a slightly
higher level, please drop in to the following newsgroup:

comp.lang.xharbour

The xHarbour language is based on C

OK, I get it: It's belated April Fools' joke. A NEW language, BASED on C!
Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you. Nice try, but no cigar: you can
fool some of the people some of the time, and take advantage of nice
people often, but karma is a bitch!

 

[Sourav]

Hi:

    For those of you who wish to use the C language at a slightly higher
level, please drop in to the following newsgroup:

        comp.lang.xharbour

    The xHarbour language is based on C and uses a variety of C
implementations to compile and link its applications.  There are a several
GUI packages (free and commercial) to build your apps.

    This language is based on the several xBase languages of ten years ago,
and has brought together the best features of all of them, and exposes
hundreds of C functions in a very easy C-like syntax:

        Function main()

            local cVrbl := "crackpot"    // 'local' vrbl only accessible in
this function

            private cAnotherVrbl := "nutcake"    // 'private' vrbl avail
here and all functions below

            CLS    // Clears the terminal screen

            ? "I'm assessed mentally as : " + cVrbl    //kicks up a line
and prints

            ? "I'm also known as a : " + cAnotherVrbl  // kicks up anotyher
line and prints

        /*
            and of course, there are zillions of non-trivial features using
C and Databases where you can
            become quickly productive and make a good living in our
language.
            We have about 400 separate tests available for download to
demonstrate the *power* of
            this language
        */

     return nil

    There are native built-in Comix databases available for your use,and a
variety of 'SQL' databases easily linkable to your apps.

    You can also include C functions as part of your source code.

    So, if you wish to quickly build an application based on C, then
xHarbour is the way to go.

    To download the latest implementation of xHarbour:

            -    Visitwww.whosaway.com
            -    Enter the Password: XHB

    Better still, visitwww.xharbour.comfor support, documentation, and
help on Extended Harbour (xHarbour).

-Mel Smith
webmasterwww.whosaway.com

great

 

[Mel Smith]

Mike says:

OK, I get it: It's belated April Fools' joke. A NEW language, BASED on C!
Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you. Nice try, but no cigar: you can
fool some of the people some of the time, and take advantage of nice
people often, but karma is a bitch!

Mike:

This is no joke !

1. You write your code in xHarbour (using all its features, classes,
functions, librairies).
2. You compile your source program(s) into C-based pcode.
3. You compile this 'C' code into object modules.
4. You link these object modules along with other provided librairies
into a high-speed executable.


xHarbour is relatively new (about ten years old), and has a few
thousand avid programmers making a good living building apps for businesses.
It is 'new' in the sense that the best features of the several xBase
languages (Clipper, dBase, xBase, FoxPro, etc) in existence then were
gathered together, and then those features were implemented into Harbour,
then xHarbour, and expanded over the past ten years. Altho xHarbour in its
bare form is a 'console-based' system, it has several GUI implementations --
some commercial, and a few good ones that are free and are vibrantly active.

I, myself, have built and installed installed several GUI apps and
several console apps at a major structural steel company which controls
their steel beam inventory, does their time-sheet accounting, and provided a
fast, automatic Estimating system for them to quote on major jobs.

These tasks all used xHarbour as the base language.

I am the webmaster of three web sites, and have an Apache Server beside
me in my office. I use an xHarbour app *solely* as the CGI for each of
these sites.

When (if) you visit my www.whosaway.com site, the password you input
(i.e., xhb) is received by my xharbour app (via Apache), databases are
searched, pages are built live and in real-time, and are sent back from
xHarbour to you via my Apache server. Who needs PHP when we have C and
xHarbour !

I'm definitely *not* one of the gurus that populate our ng
(comp.lang.xharbour), but those that visit there daily (including another
Smith -- David -- no relation) can answer any query you might have.

btw, xHarbour is Open Source, and the whole package can be downloaded
to your site via SVN -- or just go to my whosaway site and get the binary
package, and the source code to examine. You'll note that a good portion of
the functions are written in C itself, and the remainder in xHarbour.

You can, of course, build your own functions, and Classes if you wish.
There are a large variety of contributed librairies to handle a wide variety
of tasks: from scientific thru internet accessing code, thru business
processing thru massive database accessing.


-Mel Smith

 

[Malcolm McLean]

    xHarbour is relatively new (about ten years old),  and has a few
thousand avid programmers making a good living building apps for businesses.
It is 'new' in the sense that the best features of the several xBase
languages (Clipper, dBase, xBase, FoxPro, etc) in existence then were
gathered together, and then those features were implemented into Harbour,
then xHarbour, and expanded over the past ten years.

There are zillions of languages, many of them based on C. It's a huge
problem. Part of the solution is to do it in C unless there is a
pressing need to use some other language. The problem is that there
are very often such pressing needs.

 

[Bill Cunningham]

Mike says:


Mike:

This is no joke !

1. You write your code in xHarbour (using all its features,
classes, functions, librairies).
2. You compile your source program(s) into C-based pcode.
3. You compile this 'C' code into object modules.
4. You link these object modules along with other provided
librairies into a high-speed executable.


xHarbour is relatively new (about ten years old), and has a few
thousand avid programmers making a good living building apps for
businesses. It is 'new' in the sense that the best features of the
several xBase languages (Clipper, dBase, xBase, FoxPro, etc) in
existence then were gathered together, and then those features were
implemented into Harbour, then xHarbour, and expanded over the past
ten years. Altho xHarbour in its bare form is a 'console-based'
system, it has several GUI implementations -- some commercial, and a
few good ones that are free and are vibrantly active.
I, myself, have built and installed installed several GUI apps and
several console apps at a major structural steel company which
controls their steel beam inventory, does their time-sheet
accounting, and provided a fast, automatic Estimating system for them
to quote on major jobs.
These tasks all used xHarbour as the base language.

I am the webmaster of three web sites, and have an Apache Server
beside me in my office. I use an xHarbour app *solely* as the CGI
for each of these sites.

When (if) you visit my www.whosaway.com site, the password you
input (i.e., xhb) is received by my xharbour app (via Apache),
databases are searched, pages are built live and in real-time, and
are sent back from xHarbour to you via my Apache server. Who needs
PHP when we have C and xHarbour !

I'm definitely *not* one of the gurus that populate our ng
(comp.lang.xharbour), but those that visit there daily (including
another Smith -- David -- no relation) can answer any query you might
have.
btw, xHarbour is Open Source, and the whole package can be
downloaded to your site via SVN -- or just go to my whosaway site and
get the binary package, and the source code to examine. You'll note
that a good portion of the functions are written in C itself, and the
remainder in xHarbour.
You can, of course, build your own functions, and Classes if you
wish. There are a large variety of contributed librairies to handle a
wide variety of tasks: from scientific thru internet accessing code,
thru business processing thru massive database accessing.

Whatever it is it can't compare to C.

Bill

 

[Mel Smith]

Bill said:


">

Whatever it is it can't compare to C.

Bill:

The second step of the compilation produces C- Code, which is compiled
into object code, which is linked into an executable (i.e., an .exe)

So, it *is* C -- only a lot more productive and a lot less syntactical
nonsense.

If you want to 'bit-twiddle', you *still can* within xHarbour, or if you
want to be productive and 'sell your warss', its a lot faster and easier.

-Mel Smith

 

[Keith Thompson]

Bill said:

">

Bill:

The second step of the compilation produces C- Code, which is compiled
into object code, which is linked into an executable (i.e., an .exe)

So, it *is* C -- only a lot more productive and a lot less syntactical
nonsense.

No, it's not C. The fact that it's compiled into a C-like language
doesn't make it C, nor does it make it topical here.

[...]

 

[Malcolm McLean]

    So, it *is* C -- only a lot more productive and a lot less syntactical
nonsense.

No what you mean is that it will run on any machine that supports a C
compiler.

It's quite common for start-up languages to compile to C for this
reason. However the source language itself doesn't have to be remotely
like C, it could be from the Lisp family of languages or something
entirely of your own invention.

 

[Mel Smith]

Keith said:

No, it's not C. The fact that it's compiled into a C-like language
doesn't make it C, nor does it make it topical here.

Keith:

If I use Borland's C to compile each of my modules (say commonly,
several dozen major source .prg files) of my business application, and in
the logging sequence of the build there are no errors in that compilation,
then I *must* be using C ?

Or are you saying that Borland's C compiles all sorts of things that are
*not* C ??

See ??

But may you may wish to call it 'Hi C' for High-level C ??


-Mel Smith

 

[David Resnick]

Keith said:




Keith:

       If I use Borland's C to compile each of my modules (say commonly,
several dozen major source .prg files) of my business application, and in
the logging sequence of the build there are no errors in that compilation,
then I *must* be using C ?

    Or are you saying that Borland's C compiles all sorts of things that are
*not* C ??

    See ??

You appear to be making the assertion that: Any generator of C is
topical here, not with regard to discussion of the generated C, but
with regard to the generator. Feels more like simple advocacy of a
not remotely close to C language. Are you saying that discussion of
xHarbour implementation that compiles without a C intermediate form
isn't relevant here, but one that compiles with one is? And do you
actually believe that is somehow sensible, or are you just trolling at
this point?

 

[Mel Smith]

Malcolm said:

No what you mean is that it will run on any machine that supports a C
compiler.

No, what I said is that it is compiled to C code, then compiled again by
your C-Compiler to object code

It's quite common for start-up languages to compile to C for this
reason. However the source language itself doesn't have to be remotely
like C, it could be from the Lisp family of languages or something
entirely of your own invention.

But xHarbour is absolutely like C !! Any C programmer, can sit right
down, and go to work ! (without worrying about being hand-cuffed with new,
restrictive syntactical rules)

(After about 11 years, you still call it a 'start-up' language ??? ---
Hmmmmph !)

**************************

aMyArray = ARRAY(12)

amyarray[1]="January" ; AMYARRAY[12] := "December"
AmYArRaY[6] := DATE()

(i.e., you don't get screwed with Upppercase, Lowercase syntax crap,
its all the same array)

or,
aCrap := {3.1415926,"3.14",date(),seconds(),"etcetera")


? aCrap[4] // kickls up a line, shows the seconds since midnite

For I = 1 to 1000000 // a simple loop and counter
// do anything here
Next

or

For i = 1000000 to 1 skip -2
// do anything backwards
next

while lHellFreezesOver // any logical/boolean vrbl or expression
// work away in here until time to exit
EXIT
end


-Mel

 

[Mel Smith]

David said:

You appear to be making the assertion that: Any generator of C is
topical here, not with regard to discussion of the generated C, but
with regard to the generator. Feels more like simple advocacy of a
not remotely close to C language. Are you saying that discussion of
xHarbour implementation that compiles without a C intermediate form
isn't relevant here, but one that compiles with one is? And do you
actually believe that is somehow sensible, or are you just trolling at
this point?


David:

Yes, I'm just trolling for converts.

But your comment 'not remotely close' is absolutely false. Pronably,
xHarbour is the closest language to C there is without actually being C
itself. It was created by C experts who were trying (in the late 1990's) to
build a better higher-level language but based on the speed and power of C.
They did it: xHarbour !

... and it is being improved and made ever more powerful every day.

-Mel

 

[David Resnick]

    Yes, I'm just trolling for converts.

Sadly I don't have a killfile.

-David

 

[Malcolm McLean]

Malcolm said:


    No, what I said is that it is compiled to C code, then compiled again by
your C-Compiler to object code

It's quite common for start-up languages to compile to C for this
reason. However the source language itself doesn't have to be remotely
like C, it could be from the Lisp family of languages or something
entirely of your own invention.

    But xHarbour is absolutely like C !!   Any C programmer, can sit right
down, and go to work !   (without worrying about being hand-cuffed withnew,
restrictive syntactical rules)

That's also a common pattern, a C-like language, with some
superiority. It does raise the issue of how C-like a language needs to
be before we should call it C - e.g. if we have garbage collection is
that "C with garbage collection" or "not C"?

    (After about 11 years, you still call it a 'start-up' language ???   ---  
Hmmmmph !)

I hadn't heard of xHarbour before this post. That doesn't mean that it
won't become one of the famous languages. But for the moment you need
to piggyback on C compilers to ensure widespread support - a totally
legitimate strategy.

    **************************

    aMyArray = ARRAY(12)

    amyarray[1]="January" ; AMYARRAY[12] := "December"
    AmYArRaY[6] := DATE()

    (i.e., you don't get screwed with Upppercase, Lowercase  syntaxcrap,
its all the same array)

Removing case sensitivity from C is just a small syntactical change.
The arrays also seem to be 1-based - from experience, this is a grief.
But again, just a small change.

    or,
    aCrap := {3.1415926,"3.14",date(),seconds(),"etcetera")

    ? aCrap[4]    // kickls up a line, shows the seconds since midnite

Not sure what's going on here. Type information seems to be carried
with the object. many languages do this, but not C, and it's quite a
big change. However is aCrap[4] calling seconds(), as you seem to
imply, or is it initialised with the earlier call (as most lanauges
would have it?)

    For I = 1 to 1000000    // a simple loop and counter
        // do anything here
    Next

    or

    For i = 1000000 to 1 skip -2
        // do anything backwards
    next

Standard for loops. Almost every language has them.

    while lHellFreezesOver    // any logical/boolean vrbl or expression
        // work away in here until time to exit
        EXIT
    end

While loop and a break. Again, almost every language has this
construct. Or is the exit and exit from the program rather than the
loop? Again, we don't know.

There's not much point, in my view, making small cosmetic changes to C
syntax, like next and end as opposed to curly brackets, unless you
want to emphasise that the script is not C. The real difference seems
to be in the typing system. Carrying type information about at runtime
makes it easier to knock up small snippets of code. However in large
programs, there is a problem. Take x = squareroot(y). What happens if
y is negative? Do we get an imaginary? The problem is this tends to be
one of the things which is poorly documented. It's easy to lose track
of exactly what is being passed where.

 

[Mel Smith]

David said:

"Sadly I don't have a killfile.

David:

Don't be concerned. I'll leave you folks alone from now on, and will
only watch, read, and try not to puke

-Mel

 

[David Resnick]

David said:

"Sadly I don't have a killfile.

David:

    Don't be concerned.  I'll leave you folks alone from now on, and will
only watch, read, and try not to puke

-Mel

Had you posted simple off topic language advocacy I wouldn't have
bothered responding. I in general am not interested in being the
topicality police, and sometimes offer off topic advice while also
advising people to look elsewhere for details. But to try and defend
a completely different language as topical to a C group because it is
a front end that in one implementation happens to produce C as topical
here is neither rational nor reasonable. Not a good approach to being
listened to IMHO.

-David

 

[Seebs]

If I use Borland's C to compile each of my modules (say commonly,
several dozen major source .prg files) of my business application, and in
the logging sequence of the build there are no errors in that compilation,
then I *must* be using C ?

Not really.

Or are you saying that Borland's C compiles all sorts of things that are
*not* C ??

There are many translators from other languages to C. That doesn't make
those languages C, even though you eventually compile stuff that started
in them with a C compiler.

But may you may wish to call it 'Hi C' for High-level C ??

It seems as though you have syntax which isn't C, which is used to create
C code, no?

-s

 

[Seebs]

It's quite common for start-up languages to compile to C for this
reason. However the source language itself doesn't have to be remotely
like C, it could be from the Lisp family of languages or something
entirely of your own invention.
Exactly.

But xHarbour is absolutely like C !!

"Like" C is not the same thing as "is" C.

aMyArray = ARRAY(12)

This is not like C. In C, there'd be a semicolon here.

amyarray[1]="January" ; AMYARRAY[12] := "December"
AmYArRaY[6] := DATE()

And you are using ":=" for assignment, which is not like C.

(i.e., you don't get screwed with Upppercase, Lowercase syntax crap,
its all the same array)

And this is absolutely, totally, unlike C, and contrary to the spirit of
C.

All the examples you show indicate that not only is this language not
C, but that it is actively hostile to the things that C programmers know
and work with. Case sensitivity of identifiers (with rare and specialized
exceptions) has been part of C since K&R and before, and a great deal
of C not only reflects this but *relies* on it.

Whatever you're peddling, it ain't C, and speaking as someone who quite
likes C, I can't easily imagine any programmer liking both this and C.

-s

 

[Ben Bacarisse]

Exactly.

The paragraph starting "It's quite common..." was written by Malcolm
McLean. Mel Smith (or his Usenet client) has not yet got the hang of
quoting text in replies so you can't tell from the '>' marks who said
what.

<snip>