Hi all,

Perhaps a stupid question. Some time ago, I received a rpi zeroW as a gift, but as I did not have any use for ii I passed it to somebody else in our electronics-group. Now, that person has had a +30 year carreer as self-taught programmer -starting out with BASIC on DOS machines- so he showed of some of his old BASIC applications in dosbox on the pi.

So far so good, but he had an interesting question: Years ago, I wrote a library in BASIC for screen / window applications in DOS. (you know, pop-up text-windows and so on). How do I do that on linux (in C)?

As I myself only do ‘backend’ coding (so no UI), I have to admit I did not have any answer to that.

So, question, For somebody who has mostly coded in BASIC (first DOS and later Visual Basic) and now switched to C and python, what is the best / most easy tool to write a basic UI application with window-function on linux/unix. I know there exist things like QT and ncurses, but I never used these, so I have no idea.

Any advice?

Kr.

  • Eheran@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    It is far more efficient to ask specific questions instead of reading the whole documentation. Asking those with relevant knowledge of the field is usually not an option. Asking GPT is an option we now have. Why would you not like it? It is like having Excel instead of a calculator and paper.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
      0·
      3 months ago

      You don’t learn as well when you have someone/something else do the thinking for you. It’s nice to NOT have to keep going back to an LLM for answers.

      • Eheran@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        I learn even less if the effort required is far too high to even try. GPT reduces this a whole lot, enabling me (and presumably many others) to do things they were unable to do previously.

        I really do not understand how this community is so toxic regarding this.

        • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
          0·
          3 months ago

          I really do not understand how this community is so toxic regarding this.

          I’m guessing it’s because you’re surrounded by people who DID spend the extra effort to learn something on their own without having their hand held, and now just see people trying to take the easy way out.

          You’re not unique. We were all in your position once.

          • Eheran@lemmy.world
            0·
            3 months ago

            Define “without having their hand held”. Did they come up with all concepts themselves? Do they exclusively code in assembly? Wire their machines by hand? Operate the switches manually? Push the button off the Morse machine themselves? How far back should I go with the analogies before it is clear how nonsensical that is? I am a random hobbyist that is enabled to do such stuff because of GPT. I would not have been able to replace a broken BMS chip in my e-bike battery without GPT helping me digest the datasheet and get the register, programming procedure etc. etc. into code to read the old and write the new chip. I am not 15 anymore, I can not spend 50 hours learning some niche skill that I will never(!) use again just to fix something that is worth 200 $.

            If you think that anyone can do that with GPT you are not only mistaken but at the same time I am shocked that you would not want that to be the case, just out of pettiness that you could not do it as easy but “had to learn it the hard way back in the day”. Disgusting.

            • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
              0·
              3 months ago

              I don’t care what you do, you do you. I just like actually knowing things when I need to know them, and have the capacity to solve problems myself without being dependent on tech for everything. It’s like being able to figure out how to change your own engine oil vs. paying somebody to do it for you.

              Did they come up with all concepts themselves? Do they exclusively code in assembly? Wire their machines by hand? Operate the switches manually? Push the button off the Morse machine themselves?

              We read books. We went to classes. We got our hands dirty and failed, again and again and again until it clicked and we got it right. That’s the part that’s hard. LLMs are a tool. Not a replacement for a good programmer who understands what they are doing. Use them to help you save time with tasks you are already familiar with. Don’t use them as a college professor. Because eventually it’s going to teach you wrong, that’s how they work. And without knowing some basic concepts about the subject you’re inquiring about, you’re not going to catch it when it does go wrong.

              I’m 42 by the way, and I still learn new things every day.

              It is far more efficient to ask specific questions instead of reading the whole documentation.

              I’m going to bring up an excerpt of your previous comment, because this is an example I want to make. Say there is something in that datasheet (I’m completely making this up as an example) about needing a certain value resistor to set the charging current, and ChatGPT fails to mention this and simply tells you that the battery takes the voltage directly from the circuit without it? Then you have a fire on your hands, because you decided to NOT to read the datasheet and skip crucial info. If you keep taking AI generated text at face value, it’s going to bite you in the ass one day.

              Electronics is my main hobby, so you can bet I’m poring over datasheets all day too, and little gotchas like that are all over the place. You simply cannot trust them with these things the way you can trust a good old book or someone that’s been doing it for a long time.