On Sunday, 17 January 1999,
     BRYAN SCHWARTZ wrote to IVAN TODOROSKI about Languages

 BS> I do not pretend to be an "expert" on computer languages
so if anyone
 BS> finds fault in what I write feel free to correct me.
 BS> Todays major languages as far as I can see are:
 BS>   C++    Visual Basic    PowerBuilder
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

   Those two aren't languages... they are RAD tools. There is a great
   difference. In general, a RAD tool has nothing really to do with a
   given language, it can be written for any language.

 BS> The new up and coming language is  Java.

  Well it's not so new today... it's been around for a while now...

 BS> The ancient "Legacy" languages are:
 BS> COBOL, PL/1, FORTRAN, APL, and various assembler languages such as
 BS> IBM/360 assembler.
 BS> Still important for learning is "C". Both Java and C++ use a lot of
 BS> stuff first developed on "C". But "C" itself is
not now a major
 BS> development tool.

  I cannot agree with this either... C is STILL a major development tool
  in OS design. Most modern OS's are written in C and assembler (the
  base parts anyway), not in C++ or Java. Any system programs, device
  drivers, etc. are almost exclusively written in C/ASM.

 BS> None of these languages are dead. Once a large enough number of

      With this I agree! :)

 BS> programs are written in a particular language you can never get
 BS> rid of it. These "Legacy" languages will always be with us to
 BS> varying degrees because to rewrite all those ancient programs
 BS> would cost too much. It's cheaper and safer to keep these ancient
 BS> programs healthy using the original language they are written in.

  Yes, right again. It's not only the cost of rewriting... it's common
  sense. When you really think about it, *WHY* would you ever want to
  rewrite a good and working piece of code, which has been tested so
  many years in the field? You gain almost nothing by rewriting it, and
  you can lose a lot... why go all over the cycle again, writing code,
  debuging, testing, and possibly introduce many hiden bugs which would
  take years to weed out, when you already have a perfectly good and
  working version of the program?! All you need is some programmer who
  knows that language, if the one who wrote it isn't available, to
  maintain it. And learning a new language isn't all that hard... making
  good and robust code free of bugs is!

 BS> Everyone has their oppinions about what language is good, what
 BS> sucks. To me, Visual Basic sucks. It creats bloated, slow code.
                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"bloated, slow code" is actually a very old Sanscrit expression which
roughly translated means Microsoft :)

 I had a chance to check out the Microsoft Encarta World blah blah 99 on
 a Pentium II with 64 megs of RAM, and a 32x CD-ROM drive...

   Let's just say that it redefined the meaning of *SLOW*!

  I think the world is going totally insane...

 BS> Pascal used to be very big for PC progamming and there are still
 BS> lots of Pascal fanatics around. There is ADA which is used by the
 BS> military and government. The two major language concepts are the

  I know people who can still program quite fluently in Ada or Modula.

   I haven't used those languages, but my friends that use them say they
   are actually much better than Pascal... I guess that personal taste
   has a lot to do with the choice of language.

 BS> old structured programming and the new object oriented programming
 BS> techniques. The Legacy languages are more suited for the
 BS> structured methods, but you can use object oriented methods with
 BS> most any language, it's just a lot easier to use object oriented
 BS> methods with C++, SmallTalk, and Java. I have seen a book on
 BS> object oriented assembly x86 written back in the 1980's. And I

  If the language is flexible enough, you can use almost any programming
  paradigm with it... an example of this is LISP. When it was written,
  OO programming probably wasn't even concieved, and it has NO support
  for objects in the language itself whatsoever, and yet by cleverly
  using its data structures and closures it is possible to do OO
  programming in it, infact more than possible, it's quite easy to do it
  and is very powerfull. And requires ABSOLUTELY no change to the
  language itself. When I saw some examples of OO programming in LISP, I
  couldn't believe my eyes! It also lends itself quite easily to
  functional programming (I think this was its original purpose), and
  it's just as easy to do structured programming in it too!

  Three TOTALLY different programming paradigms covered by a single
  language! And this language has probably the simplest syntax of all
  languages, and the simplest data structures. Both the syntax and the
  data structures are based on the SAME concept - simple lists. LISP
  (which stands for List Processing) uses nothing but lists (although
  modern compilers offer hash-tables, vector arrays etc for performance
  reasons)

 BS> Java. Java programs offer the hope that one day we can write a
 BS> program in one language ( Java ) and be able to run that program
 BS> on any computer without having to rewite it to suit different
 BS> operating systems and different hardware. If this were to happen
 BS> no one would need MS Windows. You could run your favourite

  I hope this is one of the reasons why IBM is pushing Java forward so
  hard...

 BS> programs on any operating system. Sun won the first round of a
 BS> lawsuite against Microsoft. MS tried to 'pollute' the Java code to
 BS> make it unportable. Just the same, I doubt we will ever see the
 BS> 'write once, run anywhere' concept become reality. The computer
 BS> industry is just too full of greedy idiots.

  If they were JUST greedy, it wouldn't be such a problem... but they're
  paranoid sociopaths too, who are not satisfied with "just" being the
  first in the race. They want to be the ONLY one!

                                                            - Ivan -

.!. Rainy days and automatic weapons get me down.
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