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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2024 02:38:25 +0000
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
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From: "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net>
Organization: wokiesux
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2024 22:38:25 -0400
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On 9/29/24 1:42 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 01:28:01 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> 
>> And COBOL is STILL with us, just under the skin. Lots of those 60s
>> pgms writ by narrow-tie horn-rim-glasses Dilberts STILL doing their
>> thing.
> 
> They are disappearing, one way or the other. Companies that are still
> insisting on sticking to that legacy code gradually going out of business
> or being acquired, and having that technical-debt-ridden stuff superseded
> by more modern stuff from the parent company ...
> 
> Do you think PayPal, Ebay or TradeMe use COBOL code to manage their
> financial transactions? Of course not.

   The need for those old COBOL pgms is bound to
   diminish over time. I don't think anyone writes
   NEW complex COBOL apps anymore, haven't for a
   long time. A lot of once-popular langs have
   eventually disappeared.

   Here's a list :
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages

   How many are STILL in common, or ANY, use ? Each thought
   they had the Better Idea - but, really, not so much. Hey,
   I kinda liked ALGOL-68 ... should I write some 50,000 line
   biz app using it ?  :-)

   ONE math guy from the old days used "APL" - but he
   was the ONLY one I ever knew of.

   Additionally, the (dangerous) "online-everything"
   cuts in to ANY apps writ to run on your (thinner
   and thinner) central system.

   Have NO idea what PayPal/EBay/etc use. If they're
   smart they'll kinda HIDE that. Whatever it is,
   it's probably translated into 'C' at some point
   to build the final executables.

   FORTRAN will probably go on for a long time still.
   It's tuned for engineers/scientists/mathies and
   there are a megaton of libs and docs. Python is
   so handy/ubiquitous that it'll hang on for a
   long time too. 'C' underlies almost everything.
   JavaScript will probably survive for quite awhile
   as well ... alas ........