On Sat, 2019-10-19 at 09:48 +0200, deloptes wrote: > James H. H. Lampert wrote: > > > The OP wanted this treated as a survey, and so . . . > > > > Many dialects and derivatives of BASIC, including (but not limited > > to) > > IBM VS-BASIC (ran on 370 and compatible mainframes), TRS-80 Level 1, > > Level 2, and Mod I Disk BASIC, GWBASIC, and the various QBASICs > > (QuickBASIC and QBX). (I took one look at VisualBASIC, and swore off > > any > > further M$ development tools.) > > > > FORTRAN (mainly FORTRAN IV: IBM G1, WATFIV, and TRS-80 FORTRAN). > > > > Pascal (CDC Cyber Pascal). > > > > COBOL (also on a CDC Cyber). > > > > PL/I (CDC Cyber PL/I; CDC ANSI PL/I; IBM AS/400 PL/I). > > > > Assemblers (DEC Macro-11, 8086). > > > > (LISP) <-- the parentheses are an inside joke. > > > > C (mainly on AS/400s). I must go down to the 'C' again, to the loony > > 'C,' and cry. > > > > Modula-2 > > > > MI (it's the closest you are allowed to get to a true assembler > > language > > on an AS/400) > > > > RPG/400 (both OPM and ILE) > > > > CL (on AS/400s; it's like a shell script, only compiled). > > > > Java > > > > I've forgotten just about all the SmallTalk I ever learned. > > > > I can get by in SQL. > > > > The more programming languages you know, the easier it is to pick up > > additional programming languages. And the less likely you are to > > treat > > your favorite language (or the only one you know) as a panacea. And > > if > > you have good linkage capabilities, mixed-language work is not > > difficult > > at all. > > > > Not much that's on the published list. But then again, when I leave > > my > > present employment, I'm probably never going to write a single line > > of > > code professionally again. > > > > -- > > JHHL > > But James ... this is like a walk through the museum. Are these indeed > languages that "Employers Really Want"?
There is a lot of existing code written in SQL, Java, COBOL, C (and C++), FORTRAN, and I expect by now Python. That code needs or will need occasional maintenance or even further development. COBOL, in particular, is well established in some large and important core business systems, especially in financial organizations; a programmer with decent skills in COBOL, along with the applicable host OS (mostly z/OS) and development tools and facilities is used is likely to be able to earn a decent living for some time to come. It may be a language in decline, but it is likely to take quite a while. FORTRAN is somewhat similar, but has a smaller, more stable, and mors specialized application space and often, I think, is maintained by the successors of the program users who wrote it originally. A good deal of it may, by now, have been replaced by C, C++, Python, or some other newer language. I have been retired for a few years, but wonder if development and maintenance by end user technical subject specialists is not common with Python as well. I suspect most of the others listed here are niche languages by now that might offer occasional employment but more likely would occur occasionally and be handled as an additional duty by programmers who primarily uses other languages. Various on-line quasi-technical publications present lists from time to time that suggest a number of other languages that may be in demand. A few that come readily to mind are Javascript, R, and Go, but there are others. Tom Dial
