What is your favorite language?

We all have our favorite language, but for most people it's almost religious to discuss which language is the best. I realized I don't know what language people really prefer, simply because I've never discussed it!

Having a look at TIOBE Programming Community Index for May 2008 got me thinking. You will see Java in top, followed by C and then (Visual) Basic. I couldn't get this, until I read the following:

Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

Of course, Java produces a lots of lines of code, and C has been around for a long long time. Visual Basic I can't say why is rated third, but I guess every newbie programmer develops in VB, and also, you have all those macros! I guess those makes up for a few lines?! :)

C# is only at 8'th place, but I hope that's because you don't need to write as much code in it as you do with other languages... which probably isn't true because you DO write a lots of code in it. With C# 3.0 you can use synthetic sugar to write less code, but not that much ;) I really think the reason C# is not being that highly ranked is because it hasn't been around for that long. People are still experimenting with it, and those companies that has been around for a while can't see the reason for replacing Java with C#. But, in the future, when everyone is jumping off Java, C# will grow in popularity!

Anyway, I added a vote to this blog (in the left sidebar), so go ahead and vote on your favorite language. And, if you want, post a comment on this post, arguing for why you think your language is the best!

C# Lambda Lazy List FizzBuzz :)

Ok, so here is my next example of an implementation of the FizzBuzz problem. I'm going to use a combination of C# 3.0's lambda expressions, lazy lists and extension methods!

First, I create a function returning a lazy list over all numbers starting from 1:

static IEnumerable<int> AllNumbers()
{
    int i = 1;
    while (true) yield return i++;
}

Second, I create a function returning a lazy list of strings, being pText every pCount time. I.e. null, null, Fizz, null, null, Fizz.

static IEnumerable<string> FizzBuzz(int pCount, string pText)
{
    while (true)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < pCount-1; i++)
        {
            yield return null;
        }
        yield return pText;
    }
}

Now, I need a way of combining the values two lists, so I create an extension method for this. It takes another list and a combinator function:

static IEnumerable<T> Combine<T, TA, TB>(this IEnumerable<TA> pA, IEnumerable<TB> pB, Func<TA, TB, T> pCombineFunc)
{
    var i = pA.GetEnumerator();
    var j = pB.GetEnumerator();
    while(i.MoveNext() && j.MoveNext())
    {
        yield return pCombineFunc(i.Current, j.Current);
    }
}

And here is the whole FizzBuzz program, returning a list of strings being 1, 2, Fizz, 4, Buzz...:

static IEnumerable<string> FizzBuzz()
{
    return AllNumbers().Combine(
        FizzBuzz(3, "Fizz").Combine(FizzBuzz(5, "Buzz"), (x, y) => x + y),
        (x, y) => (y != "") ? y : x.ToString());
}

To write the result to the console, I use this main function:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    foreach (string fizzBuzz in FizzBuzz().Take(100))
    {
        Console.WriteLine(fizzBuzz);
    }
}

Thats it! Nice and easy eh? :) Hope you liked it and perhaps makes you look into C# 3.0, if you haven't already? You can always download Visual Studio 2008 C# Express for free if you want to try it out!

Edit: Changed generic parameters <T> to html-characters. Changed C# 3.5 to 3.0 (thank u Gustaf :))

C# FizzBuzz :)

Here is my thoughts and solution to Gustafs Functional FizzBuzz problem! It's more or less a copy from what I wrote as a comment in his old blog, except for some modifications in the code snippet below.

I believe that in almost all cases, where you should write a solution for a given problem, you have two solutions to choose from. The first one focuses on writing well looking, readable, code (which is always good), the second focuses on writing fast code (which is required in some projects).

My solution for a bit faster code (I guess), would be this (c# style):

for (int i = 1, j = 1, k = 1; i <= 100; i++, j++, k++)
{
    string t = "";
    if (j == 3)
    {
        t = "Fizz";
        j = 0;
    }
    if (k == 5)
    {
        t += "Buzz";
        k = 0;
    }
    if (t == "")
    {
        t = i.ToString();
    }
    Console.WriteLine(t);
}

The difference is that you don't need to call "x `mod` m == 0" to find out if you should print Fizz or Buzz, instead two extra counters are used to keep track on when to write Fizz and when to write Buzz. I guess you could write this in functional style as well, but my haskell skills are a bit out of date so I wouldn't dare to try that ;)