On 10/21/2012 10:24 AM, Jack Coats wrote:
Historically I find languages interesting, but not the end all. It is
another tool, like saying what is the best screwdriver, flat head,
phillips, square drive, etc. It depends on the application.
As the old salt goes: If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every
problem as a nail. -- Abraham Maslow.
Ya know, the computer science discipline (if one may call it that) has
been chasing 5th generation, natural language, disposable code and 25
other three and four letter acronyms since World War II. We are no
closer. Instead, we have zillions of computer languages. Heck, there
are more _linux_ distributions than citizens of Adams, TN (like that
matters...).
The whole concept of compilation (build executable before run time) and
interpretation (build executable during run time) is to take some
intermediate code and resolve it to binary machine code. What strains
my imagination is that we need so many different intermediate code sets
to drive that compilation or interpretation. Part of this is the
"intellectual property" process getting in way; things like proprietary
standards.
Now don't get me wrong, manipulating HTML in COBOL or FORTRAN cannot be
much fun. My industrial engineer friend bemoans the amount of human
input required to accomplish information technology. We gotta make the
computers do more of the work.
Anybody remember "desk checking" your code before sending it to the
compiler and waiting 45 minutes to find your typos?
Howard
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