Programming Languages (was Re: [rescue] Solaris on a PPC)

[Sheldon T. Hall]

"Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes ...
To: "The Rescue List" <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: [rescue] Solaris on a PPC


> On Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 05:52 PM, Frank Van Damme wrote:

[snip]

> > He knows a lot better then I do for sure. You often see holy wars about
> > which is the ultimate programming language but I have yet to see a
> > scientific study showing which of both sides is right.
>
>    There is no ultimate programming language.  While it's true that,
> generally speaking, anything that can be done on a computer can be done
> in any programming language, a particular language is typically better
> suited to a given application while being worse for others.  People who
> know only one language and are unwilling to learn another (due to
> laziness or whatever) will often press thier one language into service
> where it doesn't belong.

"When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails."

I'll be happy if I never see another accounting system written in C ... or
word-processor in BASIC ... or anything at all in Pascal.

> I believe such programs are better off
> remaining unwritten, and such programmers should remain unemployed.
> Further, incompetent people who DO know more than one language often
> make bad choices and misapply a given language to a task for which it
> is ill-suited.

Sometimes the suits decide.  Either they want to be able to advertise that
it is "written in <foo> for <bar>" or they read something in Business Week
about it.  Why else does an excressence like Sun's HotJava exist?

> These programmers should also be unemployed...or at
> least beaten up on their front lawns in front of their families.

And double that for the suits who make 'em do it.
>
>    You will see no scientific study showing which is right...because
> their is no "best" language.  There are a few good ones, and lots of
> bad ones, to be sure...but there is no "best" one to cover all uses.

Sure there is ... we just can't agree on which one it is!  It's probably
Intercal, anyway....

People have paid me to write in 23 languages, and they all sucked in one way
or another, at something, at least some of the time.  Those 23 languages
include household words as well as "dustbin-of-history" candidates like TAL
II and DataBus, too.

And what about P-Code, remember P-Code?  It was the
"write-once-run-anywhere" solution at one time.  Pascal, the Java of the
eighties....

One thing is for sure, though, programming styles may come and programming
styles may go, but fscking COBOL rolls on and on.

-Shel