How do you tell which language software is written in?

Question

If you have the source code for a program how do you tell which language it's written in?

I would like to know which language this software is written in..

http://www.animateclay.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=24&page=1

Also.. how long do you estimate his program took to write? It's 183kb.

And.. how long do you think it would take a fairly bright person to learn to write a program like this?

Answer 1

as stated in the file Readme_Developer.txt it's written using Borland Delphi 2.0. So it's Delphi code. Delphi is a evolution of pascal to give it a object paradigm and incorporate a GUI development environnement.

Now learning a new language for an accomplished programmer is quite easy. Let's say a week. For someone who never done any programming it could be quite frustrating. I would say that most computer science students can't program honestly before completing a least 2 courses (about 100 hours), and that cover only general abilities.

To be able to perform more specialized program, someone would have to perform increasingly more difficult projects and see code from different authors and style.

I would be surprised that someone new to the trade would be able to write this code in less than about 6 month of very serious work.

But having the code of a similar program, and trying to rewrite one of your own, could be a very interesting learning experience as long as shortening the process quite a bit :-)

hope that help

Answer 2

It looks like a Pascal program.

If you know other programming languages, it shouldn't take too long. Learning new languages is just a matter of learning the new command structure and syntax. All programming languages use pretty much the same program flow and style.

It wouldn't take me more than 6 months I'd guess.