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Coding in business school

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Re: Coding in business school

Post by Voom »

That's interesting to know. I doubt I will be learning Javascript anytime soon, but I will definitely keep it in mind. Have you ever heard of Ruby on Rails? Some crazy language that is supposed to make coding a streamlined process by having a massive collection of premades. Idk how good it is exactly but it is growing in popularity rapidly.
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Re: Coding in business school

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In terms of pure language, Ruby is IMHO on par with Python but the libraries made for each one made them very different.

Ruby on Rails is a great web framework indeed (server side only, like php though) but I doubt it's popularity is still growing rapidly. It was 10-5 years ago, but today JavaScript and node.js is taking the spot.

Python has many bindings with native (C) libraries and make it great for desktop apps.
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Re: Coding in business school

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Voom wrote:I never heard of Mathcad and I'm a big math type of person. I use Wolfram Alpha for complicated calculations, but that's just a calculator on Nitros oxide.
There are many high end math packages available, some free, some not. Wolfram Alpha is driven by the engine used in Mathematica. Matlab is another widely used package (probably the most widely used). Mathcad is not necessarily the most powerful of these packages but it has the advantage of a WSIWYG interface, so math appears (mostly) as you would write it on paper. Here are example screen shots: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mathc ... JA#imgrc=_ Unless you are a student it's not cheap though. There is a free software package that has a similar interface, but is not nearly as powerful as Mathcad. It's called SMath studio. The main website seems to be down at the moment, but you can get it here: http://smath-studio.en.softonic.com/
Voom wrote:What have you used VBA for specifically?
It's impossible (or at least impractical) to program anything of any complexity without user defined functions, and in Excel the only way to create a user defined function is using VBA. Having said that, validating or debugging any complex calculation in Excel is a nightmare, so whenever possible I avoid it in the first place.
Voom wrote:My brother dislikes C greatly, I guess it just doesn't mesh well with him. It might not mesh well with a lot of people, idk.
C is a very low level language (about as low as you can get without resorting to assembly code), and it's very unforgiving. There is nothing to stop you from writing beyond the end of an array, all memory management is up to you, etc. So, again, it depends on what you want to do. Sometimes, such as for embedded processors, such a low level language is ideal. It allows for very fast, very compact code with minimal overhead.
Voom wrote:Do you use Autocad for engineering or SDKcad?
I use SolidWorks.
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Re: Coding in business school

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This makes me even more excited to learn Python. Yeah, JavaScript is def taking the spotlight nowadays. When I go to Barnes&Noble they have a ton of books about Java, JavaScript, and HTML 5. I heard that Ruby on Rails was a great success and growing maybe 2 years ago. I might not have realized that it was more of a trend.

MathCad is so cool. If I only knew when I was taking calc classes. Thanks a bunch, I will def keep in mind SMath studio. In my field I will have to do exactly that, validate complex formulations, and I will strive to become an expert in this. I am very apt to analyze data, particularly financial data. I like doing it. If I don't become an auditor, then I want to rise the ranks of a financial analyst.

What do you mean about C being unforgiving? Yeah, one of my friends mentioned that he uses SolidWorks as well. He goes to the University of Miami and in his engineering classes they sometimes use a 3D printer in combination with SolidWorks. Idk how exactly, but it's interesting.
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Re: Coding in business school

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Voom wrote:What do you mean about C being unforgiving?
As already mentioned, it is very low level.

It allows you to write constructs that work, but may not do what you expected them to (Google "common errors in C programing" to get many examples).

All memory management is up to the programmer. Nothing is automatic. In a large program it is very easy to end up with memory problems because of this.

It allows direct manipulation and use of memory addresses. So for example I can create an array, set a variable to be a pointer to the first element, then increment the pointer (the size of the increment, in bytes, is the size of an array element). There is nothing to stop me from incrementing the pointer off the end of the array, and writing to those addresses.

A low level language lets you do many things a higher level language would not, but with that flexibility comes danger. Many compilers will give warnings about some of the above, but they will never catch all of them.
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Re: Coding in business school

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Oh, that is intriguing. Where do you think Python rates, low level or high level? To be honest ... I have no idea why I want to learn Python or any coding language. I really don't have a reason other than it might be useful in the future. I will definitely need VBA, though, and I have a concrete reason for it. But I'm not a programmer.. so... how can someone like me who goes to business school be edified by a coding language just for good measure? I don't have an immediate good reason.
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Re: Coding in business school

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Having a clear goal is IMHO the best way to start learning.
You'll have motivation and a defined scope. You'll encounter problems and have to solve them. That's the best way to learn programming.
Your needs in VBA will probably be a good way to get an introduction to the basics : flow control, operators, boolean logic, string manipulation, using APIs...
Bash scripting can also easily find uses in business, to have batch operations on files (find all excel files with business plan in the name and create a zip with them all in a single command for example). Try mobaxterm for an easy tool to use bash (and plenty other Unix tools) on Windows.
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Re: Coding in business school

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Voom wrote:Oh, that is intriguing. Where do you think Python rates, low level or high level?
Python is a high level language
Voom wrote:To be honest ... I have no idea why I want to learn Python or any coding language. I really don't have a reason other than it might be useful in the future. I will definitely need VBA, though, and I have a concrete reason for it. But I'm not a programmer.. so... how can someone like me who goes to business school be edified by a coding language just for good measure? I don't have an immediate good reason.
Just as with a spoken language, the only way to really learn a programming language is to write in it. If you already know one language, say VBA, and you just read a book about another, say Python, then you would see what the differences are between the languages, but you won't become a Python programmer. So before choosing to learn a language you should ask yourself what you are going to write in it, and if the answer is nothing, trying to learn it will be a waste of time. You can't learn a programming language only because it might be useful in the future, because the only way to learn it is to use it now.
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Re: Coding in business school

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Thank you, guys. This was good advice and enlightening. I have a goal with VBA and so I will stick to it. I have a phenomenal idea of an app I want to make, but I doubt Python would be useful in making it. This is a future goal of mine and it will be a simple app, but effective...hopefully. I believe Java is good for that sort. Bash scripting sounds like my kind of thing. That is what VBA is all about. That's what macros do in a similar way. I will definitely check it out, thanks. I have a good question, what's the number one hacking language?
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Re: Coding in business school

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Voom wrote:I have a goal with VBA and so I will stick to it.
That sounds like a good plan. Once you have learned one language, learning others is easier. Although I am not a great fan of BASIC in it's innumerable variations, it is not a bad choice as a first language precisely because it crops up in many places. If you learn VBA then you will find it very easy to write vbscript, which is built in to the Windows OS (it's very useful for the same sort of things you would use Bash scripting for). vbscript is also used as a scripting language in a number of applications. It would also give you a good start for VB.NET. VB.NET is not the same as VBA (VBA is almost identical to VB6, the predecessor to VB.NET), but knowing VBA would give you a good head start.
Voom wrote:what's the number one hacking language?
:shock: That's an interesting question. Why do you want to know? I don't know the answer, or even if there is a a single language that's number one. It probably depends on what you want to hack.
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