Re: [vcf-midatlantic] obsolescence of a language, was Re: COBOL
Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic writes:
I'm not sure I'd even say that. While COBOL generally makes me want to vomit, and that's a common position, that's not the point. Organizations are using it for a reason: It's the right tool for their job, based on whatever criteria they've set forth. I really don't think it's up to any of us to assert that they're wrong.
But apart from that, what would be the motivation for declaring its obsolescence? I assume the big deal is age. So, what's the cutoff age for modern vs. "obsolete", when it comes to a language? Note that I'm not talking about implementations of the language, but the language itself, as the COBOL compilers in common use today are current, modern, maintained products. C++ is 35 years old, C is 45, Java is about 20 I think. All have seen recent standardization activity, and all have seen recent development in implementations. Just like COBOL.
I don't think there's much that's necessarily "new" or "old" about a language for representing and expressing data structures and algorithms, in cases where the language specification has continued to evolve. Yes, newer techniques (object-oriented programming) and newer habits (long identifier names, use of lowercase characters, column independence) come into being, but these languages continue to evolve to take advantage of them. Modern COBOL implements those newer things, specifically, along with many others.
Object Oriented COBOL. <ducks!>
On 05/22/2017 11:01 AM, Brian Schenkenberger via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I'm not sure I'd even say that. While COBOL generally makes me want to vomit, and that's a common position, that's not the point. Organizations are using it for a reason: It's the right tool for their job, based on whatever criteria they've set forth. I really don't think it's up to any of us to assert that they're wrong.
But apart from that, what would be the motivation for declaring its obsolescence? I assume the big deal is age. So, what's the cutoff age for modern vs. "obsolete", when it comes to a language? Note that I'm not talking about implementations of the language, but the language itself, as the COBOL compilers in common use today are current, modern, maintained products. C++ is 35 years old, C is 45, Java is about 20 I think. All have seen recent standardization activity, and all have seen recent development in implementations. Just like COBOL.
I don't think there's much that's necessarily "new" or "old" about a language for representing and expressing data structures and algorithms, in cases where the language specification has continued to evolve. Yes, newer techniques (object-oriented programming) and newer habits (long identifier names, use of lowercase characters, column independence) come into being, but these languages continue to evolve to take advantage of them. Modern COBOL implements those newer things, specifically, along with many others.
Object Oriented COBOL. <ducks!>
Yup. Terrifying, isn't it? The last time I found programming that distasteful, I was writing x86 assembler. Really, computer programming just doesn't have to be that bad! Writing PDP-11 assembler, by comparison, is like listening to a symphony. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
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