Most used programming languages...

Do you remember the Pet Rock?

Yup. I made my own. Spent an entire day looking for exactly the right rock at Constantine Bay (Cornwall) back in the early ’80s.
I called it Jessica.

It was like a Tamagotchi that didn’t need batteries or constant attention to keep the thing alive. Jessica was really easy to look after.

;)

What happened to Jessica? I left her at Avebury on the way home. Seemed to me like exactly the right place. It was, however, a bit of a detour from the A303…

Hmm, weird the trivia that one can remember.

What happened to Jessica? I left her at Avebury on the way home. Seemed to me like exactly the right place. It was, however, a bit of a detour from the A303…

Stonehenge would have been less of a diversion.

Stonehenge

Overrated.

Yes, it is technically impressive, however between the crowds and the wannabe druids and the “do not touch” barriers, it feels like a tourist site rather than anything “old”.

Avebury, on the other hand, is much larger, much quieter (a definite point for an introvert), but most of all you can actually go and touch the rocks. Which gives a sort of tangible connection between yourself and the Neolithic world that created the site around five thousand or so years ago.

Avebury, on the other hand, is much larger, much quieter …

Ditto Callanish on Lewis. Much recommended.

And I’d take Ħaġar Qim anyday. (Though I think it’s in a tent now)

(Though I think it’s in a tent now)

Yes, to reduce water damage on the soft stones. This complicates attempts to take photos of it, as the tent reduces the amount of light in an uneven fashion. I think the professional pictures on the postcards were done with the aid of a lighting rig.

Ditto Callanish on Lewis. Much recommended.

Indeed – a regular trip out every time anyone visited us when we lived near Stornoway.

Also the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney.

Also the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney.

Orkney is on my bucket list and moving up.

Olympus Mons is on mine.

Preferably a one-way trip away from this madness.

Not quite as windy as Olympus Mons :)

Television lies because reality is unrealistic.

A raging storm with 60 mile an hour winds, in a place with much less gravity and a vastly thinner atmosphere, might just – if we’re lucky – be able to get a shopping bag airborne.

The problem isn’t the wind. The problem is that the particulate matter (dust) stays in the air for ages due the the aforementioned thinness and lack of gravity. Also there is very little natural erosion so that which is flying around is harsh and abrasive. And full of perchlorates. It’s a hostile, unforgiving, environment, but it’s minor compared to what it’s like on the other lumps of rock!

Orkney is on my bucket list and moving up.

Recommended. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been, and I still love it. My brother lives near Stromness.

As for Olympus Mons – no thanks. I’ve not been to Antarctica yet, and probably never will. I know quite a few people who have though.

As for Olympus Mons – no thanks. I’ve not been to Antarctica yet, and probably never will. I know quite a few people who have though.

I think your sense of direction isn’t all that it should be. Your estimate of distance is somewhat awry as well! ;-)

Sense of direction isn’t terribly permanent to anything off-planet…although I grant you the wildly gyrating line from Scotland to Antarctica does never go remotely close to the plane of the ecliptic, whereas the direction to Olympus Mons is always fairly close to it…and while the (relatively small) distance to Antarctica is reasonably constant, the distance to Olympus Mons certainly isn’t, nor is it terribly relevant to the time taken for the journey nor to the difficulty of it.

It was the relative difficulty of the two journeys, and the relative unfriendliness of the environments once you get there, I was thinking of. Antarctica is difficult to get to, and a nasty environment – but very easy and very comfortable compared to Olympus Mons.

I think you knew that’s what I meant…

C is one of the oldest and most popular programming languages. It is “light” and fast, so it is used where high performance is needed. For example, to create drivers, operating systems, or software for microcontrollers. At the same time, C is difficult to learn – much has to be written from scratch. You have to learn many things from scratch. If you compare C to automobiles, C is a racecar, not suitable for use in cities, but very fast. C is used to create drivers, write operating system kernels, and write libraries for Python and other languages. But when I need to create a program or an application, I hire specialists from https://ithire.com/category/javascript-developers, which do everything well, so I do not waste my time.

I’ve been working in rails since 2009. It’s still an amazing language and an amazing framework tbh.

Reading this thread has put it on my mind – is there an implementation of Scheme on RISC OS? I’ve been learning Scheme lately and it’s very powerful.

Also, the past couple of years I’ve been learning Tcl and I’ve used it for several projects. Tcl is now my go-to language for quick scripts, I love it. I’d love to see Tcl/Tk on RISC OS some day.