Steve wrote:
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to get a good discussion going on the merits of knowing
and using lingua archae vs lingua franca.
Lingua archae is my term for languages that once were popular but have
been fading out of fashion and entered a general state of disuse.
Languages such as Perl, RPG, COBOL, BASIC, FORTRAN, assembler and of
course the list goes on and on.
Lingua franca being languages which are so commonly used now that they
are considered "essential" to know
Some good examples are C/C++ and to a lesser extent C# Java, Python,
PHP and well thats about all off the top of my head.
As a programmer myself, I'm finding that even though I don't use the
archaic languages much if at all anymore, having them on my resume is
the chief reason for recruiters to come calling. What I think is
bothering me the most about it is that even though the majority of HR
people are looking for these older languages, the companies themselves
aren't using them, (with maybe the exception Perl for the purposes of
porting apps away from Perl) however they are generating a rather
large percentage of the calls I'm getting.
Did you throw Perl into that particular group to stir up the mud or to
get your COBOL kicked everytime you turn around? You know Perl better
than that. If you don't, you weren't listening a few months ago. As
mentioned, Perl is used a lot in web hosting. Most folks don't like
maintaining other peoples code in Perl if they are used to very strict
syntax methodologies (and at times even if they are not), otherwise it's
very powerful and challenging language with plenty of room for growth
skill wise.
As for a list of languages that interest me as an "potential employer",
those would be Perl, Python, Ruby (on rails), C/C++. There are others,
but I'm mostly using those from your list. Java is one I don't know
enough about. I don't develop for MS platforms, so C# is not of
interest, but I don't hate it. PHP on the other hand is one I think is
over rated. It's good for quick and dirty, but beyond that it's for
cheap developers in 3rd world countries like Russia and India ... heh.
(run! I've rattled the PHP hornet's nest)
Mister Ed
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