Re: OT: Simple to use programming environment for Windows


"quasi" <quasi@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:mk19b3pgn0biflma104nddo87e3tmggial@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 4 Aug 2007 23:57:23 +1000, "Peter Webb"
<webbfamily@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Mark Nudelman" <markn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:aNSdnbbSaJOBFyzbnZ2dnUVZ_jqdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 8/1/2007 10:27 PM, Peter Webb wrote:
All this talk of Life programs has inspired me to do some brute search
searching.

I am looking for a simple to use and hopefully free programming language
that I can use to do some modeling. My interests are mostly in finite
mathematics (combinatorics, Cellular Automata, group theory, graph
theory etc) and to a lesser extent number theory. I have no interest in
floating point. I can create my own subroutines for arbitrary large
integer arithmetic programmatically if required.

My needs are:

* Really simple to use. I don't want complicated compile/link processes,
and I don't want to spend hours learning how to use the programming
environment.

* Runs under Windows (I use Vista), if only in a DOS box.

* Cheap, or even better free.

* Allows large arrays to be created, hopefully up to 2 GBytes in length.

* A basic facility for graphic output of results would be nice.

* I would prefer that the source language be Pascal, Fortran or C (in
that order) as I know them already.

* Reasonably efficient.

Is there a reason why gcc under cygwin wouldn't work for you? It seems
to meet all your requirements, except possibly the graphics one.

--Mark

You got me into this ...

Looked ideal.

cygwin downloaded and ran fine. I now have a Unix shell. I have never used a
Unix shell, but I have used command line environments before (I wrote my
first program almost 40 years ago) so its not infeasible.

The gcc files on the net are .tar.gz so I assume this is some zip file
format equivalent. I assume that cygwin has a program to handle this. I
better find out how this works.

I will presumably also need how to use a text editor and use the file system
(or can I do these bits in Windows) to write programs and manage files? I
looked for resources on the web to help somebody from (in) a Windows
environment to make all this happen, but they all assume a Unix shell
knowledge.

How much of this Unix stuff will I need to know to install and use a simple
Pascal or Fortran compiler? What kind of learning curve am I potentially
getting into? Do you know where I can get help, up to and including a "make
magic happen" button that runs under Windows?

Am I sure I want to do this?

You don't need to use the unix shell at all -- it's just the back end
that gcc uses.

gcc is a windows application that makes "unix calls" serviced by
cygwin, all of which is hidden from you. You don't need to even be
aware of it. As long as cygwin is installed, it makes itself active as
a windows service, so gcc gets what it needs.

To run the compiler, you open a Windows command window (cmd.exe) and
issue the appropriate compilation / link commands. You will need to
find some documentation to find out the correct syntax of the gcc
commands, but once you figure it out the first time, you can then make
your own little batch files to automate the process.


That's all very reassuring. Effectively I can work within DOS? So I can say something like

c:/dos>compile test.pas
c:/dos>test

And it will happen? For example, is the compile command in gcc a DOS program "compile.exe" or similar?

And what am I supposed to do with gcc.tar.gz, or is there some Windows equivalent I hadn't found?



Regarding a text editor, I highly recommend TextPad. It's shareware,
but not expensive. Of course, any other text editor would also work.

Take the time to figure out how to use gcc. It's a one time learning
curve, which should work itself out fairly quickly. It's well worth
the effort -- it's free, equally usable on other platforms, and
generates efficient binary native code, suitable for serious research
level tasks.

quasi

I had a quick look at the VBA that comes with Excel, and it does much more than everything I need, but I think its interpreted and the stuff I wrote is very slow. One of the projects I have in mind isn't going to be practical, so I am still interested in finding an alternative.





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