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RE: old programming languages (was RE: Jumpstart a programming ab ility)
Subject:RE: old programming languages (was RE: Jumpstart a programming ab ility) From:david -dot- locke -at- amd -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 7 Jul 2001 18:13:16 -0500
But, Fortran III died, because there were no more supported machines that it
could be compiled on. This happened back in 1987. Fortran III had the
infamous computed goto statement, instead of an if statement. Having written
that stuff, I laugh at the anti "no goto" crowd. Most of them never had to
use gotos. Structured was good. Object was great. Patterns are wonderful.
Elegance is evil.
When I learned COBOL it didn't support modularity. Recursion drove my
instructor nuts. I hear that it now supports objects. COBOL is probably the
one language that people wish would die, but it was used for data
processing. Who wants to rewrite that code? Leave legacy alone and keep the
machines running and nobody ever will rewrite that stuff. I'm very happy
working as far away from data processing and IT as I can get.
I know PL/I backwards and forwards. It's dead as far as I know. Nobody is
familiar with it. Even when it was as capable as C, I still get hit with not
being technical enough. I wrote information modules, the precursors to
objects. I used the same techniques that a future employer used to write a
code generator for object-oriented C code long before C++.
It's really a matter of keeping up. COBOL wouldn't be seen as technical
enough by the same people who don't see PL/I that way. It's not keeping up.
COBOL doesn't have to be dead to be behind even if that perception is far
from truth.
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