(and once again my title falls victim to thread-title length)
Nowhere else on the internet can a person ask a random obscure question and be pretty much guaranteed an answer/someone who knows the answer.
In my case it’s programming type questions.
I’ve asked for help on SQL, ASP, PHP, VBscript.
I could have asked for help on much more but I usually find what I need on Google. I come to the dope when my question is obscure enough that it would be hard to find the answer on google.
If it wasn’t for the fact that my job involves a lot of the above, I’d be dabling in C++ (with or without OOP) Win32 programming.
FOr the latter two, when I did such things in the distant past (which for me is between four and eight years ago) I had relied on the experts on newsgroups.
Juding by the availability of experts in ASP, SQL that have come to my aid on here, I have wondered if there are a similar number of people here with expert knowledge on more advanced stuff like C++, OOP, Windows programming, etc…
So to give me, you, and everyone else an idea of how many of what type of expert there are on the dope - reply in this thread stating what your programmatic strenghts are
Currently, I’m up-to-date on C#, ASP.NET, and SQL.
I’ve also done pretty hardcore C and C++ (at least 5 years professionally on each). I guess you could throw OOP and Windows programming in there as well, since that’s what I was doing.
C++ is the only language I think I can call myself an expert in. But I can answer questions on SQL/relational databases, some Python, object-oriented programming and theoretical computer science, and probably a few other topics as well.
Professionally, I do* embedded programming in C and C++ – mostly kernel-level work. No Windows stuff though – I’ve only done serious work on Linux and FreeBSD. I’m also quite familiar with the Java language.
I’ve written compilers in Pascal, and taught it, back when it was hot. I did simulators in C, but I’m a bit rusty now. I’ve done microprogramming, machine language programming and assembly language programming extensively, and have taught PDP-11 assembler. (Machine language programming is when you have to write the assembler yourself.)
Today I mostly use Perl.
Simulators are something I’d love to be doing. Specifically ones that simulate how large numbers of somethings interact with eachother (people, cars, ants, molecules, planets)
I’d love to be tinkering away, constantly adding complexity to the system, simulating every conceivable/likely decision. I even sometimes walk through town imagining writing something to simulate all the people around me and what decisisons they are making and what things are happening to affect their decissions…
Such as how poeple react to someone with a clipboard. (I tend to give them a wide berth, problem is - so does everyone else, so you end up with an orbit of people trying to occupy the same radius around the clipboard-person.
I hesitate to call myself “expert” in anything, mostly because I’ve found that there is always someone who is more well-versed in any topic, whether in breadth or depth. And it’s often the anecdotal, workaround solutions that someone has come across that count, whether they’re experts or just “fortunate” novices.
With that said, Java’s my thing. Distributed programming for mobile robotics, in particular. I could give you a laundry list of various other languages and systems I’ve dabbled in, but none come close to my Java experience.
Sounds like you should check out Swarm or RePast. I can supply plenty more, but they’d be dependent on the objects of study and/or the level of programming complexity you’re willing to bear (e.g., real physics? 3-D?).
I wouldn’t call myself an expert in SAS, since there are a number of arcane features I’ve never bothered learning (as well as numerous modules I’ve never had access to), but I could probably answer a lot of novice questions in it.
Terrible language, but it was a great way to get that first job. All the 22 years old College kids had C++ or VB, I had Cobol and RPG and so got a job with minimal competition the day I graduated.
It’s not really programming, but I consider myself an expert at Windows batch scripts and moderately skilled in vbscript. I can’t create a complex application but I can automate many common system administration tasks. If something needs a pretty front end I can put together a reasonably slick HTA GUI.
At times I regret not learning a “real” language, but so far this hasn’t proved much of a handicap in my field.
I’ve been a software developer for 21 years, 16 on the Windows platform. I work in C++ and C, and sometimes assembly when debugging. I’ve done lots of kernel work – network drivers, printer drivers, and the like. I’ve also done embedded systems work & Unix kernel drivers (SVR4 & SunOS). Lots of experience in COM & systems software, and lots of experience with MSI.