Path: csiph.com!feeder.erje.net!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!news.swapon.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Heathfield Newsgroups: comp.programming Subject: Re: Programming Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 18:54:46 +0100 Organization: Origin Sonata Lines: 44 Message-ID: References: <6a8820b3-253a-479f-93ec-f2e03efe5753@googlegroups.com> <87d1mcjc3e.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <5054239e-14a9-46f3-93c0-8a8c5ba2542b@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 17:54:49 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="bbec9967c55d39f11ca29ee1f0b15ce1"; logging-data="6246"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18NqIerZYG9h5/rXahvkkbJN6lZGcABp7brB2kmEGXJjQ==" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.8.0 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:Qi5nGW9DYABPl4ClGigjm6S+ARc= Xref: csiph.com comp.programming:6754 On 18/07/16 18:28, BartC wrote: > On 18/07/2016 17:01, Richard Heathfield wrote: >> On 18/07/16 16:44, BartC wrote: > >>> From the Wikipedia entry on "Internet Information Services": >>> >>> "...It has been an integral part of the Windows NT family since Windows >>> NT 4.0, though it may be absent from some editions (e.g. Windows XP Home >>> edition), and is not active by default." > >> Understandable. Well, I never found it, anyway, despite being motivated >> to look (at various points in the past). So I'd hate to have to be the >> one to explain to a newbie how to get IIS working on their machine just >> so that they can get some JavaScript experience. > > That's simple enough. Here's an on-line Javascript interpreter: > > http://math.chapman.edu/~jipsen/js/ > > And here's the first program I tried (based on modifying the given > example rather than any knowledge of Javascript): > > writeln("Hello, World!"); Sure, but is it really satisfactory to /require/ an Internet connection as part of the process of learning how to write a program? I realise that it might be considered by some people to be /pragmatic/, but I can't help thinking it lacks elegance. Surely, in this day and age, it ought to be possible to write a program without having to have an Internet connection? Of course, the same objection can be levelled at my original suggestion: is it really elegant to require a Web server, even if it's running on the user's machine? Well, no, it isn't, which is why I went on to say that, having played for a bit with HTML and then made some initial forays into PHP, one may well have learned enough about programming that the transition to a language such as Java, or C, or Go (all of which can be used without a Web server) will be less of a shock. -- Richard Heathfield Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk "Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999 Sig line 4 vacant - apply within