At 07:20 2018-02-15, "Paul H. Tarver" <p...@tpcqpc.com> wrote:
Did anyone catch this article about "Zombie Languages"?
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/zombie-programming-languages-could-visu
al-basic-be-the-next-cobol/?ftag=TRE684d531
<https://www.techrepublic.com/article/zombie-programming-languages-could-vis
ual-basic-be-the-next-cobol/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=19995525687222274123473679
288983> &bhid=19995525687222274123473679288983
While the article focuses on Visual Basic, I think VFP qualifies under their
definition:
Zombie Languages: "Those old developer favorites that refuse to die"
To be honest, it makes all of us FoxPro coders cool again: We are all
"Zombie Wranglers!"
~~~~~~~ Pull Quote ~~~~~~~
James Milligan also drew parallels with the perennial demand for programmers
skilled in venerable mainframe programming language COBOL, a language older
than The Beatles.
"Other languages which continue to be widely used despite running legacy
systems include COBOL. It's known that COBOL tends to be preferred in
business, finance and administrative systems due to its efficiency in
handling large volumes of data - so it's predicted to remain popular across
these sectors."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
zombie language n. a language that is tried and proven that someone
wishes to take a swipe at. See also legacy.
legacy adj. A pejorative term used in the computer industry meaning "it works."
The first is mine; the latter is from my sig collection.
It is interesting how these sorts of articles do not seem to
get into why the language is still around.
Hoare said about Algol 60, "Here is a language so far ahead of
its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors,
but also on nearly all its successors."
Rather than going ape over the language du jour, more attention
could and should be paid to workhorses that get the job done and have
a record for doing so.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
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