How Many More Programming Languages Do We Need?
When I was learning to program there were few languages from which to choose. The languages did not tend to follow the platform or base OS as much as the purpose of the language itself. Fortran was known for performance, math and engineering. COBOL was known for the documentation of the syntax itself. Assembler was for pure power, or very limited resources. RPG was for those who didn’t like to program. C and C++ came out and provided Object Oriented features along with other tools such as LISP. Pascal and ADA came along shortly along with other tools such as PL1.
If I missed your favorites, please to be offended…there are lots of other good tools out there.
Each of the languages differed in many aspects. Today, languages seem to be copying each other. C# looks like Java. TrueScript looks like C#, etc., etc., etc. They are starting to look alike, talk alike, walk alike, and frankly, starting to bug me.
My perception is that the core issue seems to be the browser. We have more than one; that’s a good thing. What we don’t have are standards we can all work with or that extend outside the browser. The only standard is HTML5 and JavaScript.
It would be nice to have one language for writing code, regardless of the layer. How’s that for a daydreamer? Some of our readers seem to have similar thoughts.
Pete:
How many more general purpose programming languages do we need?
None.
How many more domain specific languages do we need?
At least one more. A domain specific language to interact with HTML5 and CSS would be extremely valuable.
Nuno
C++ only!
C++, C++ CScript (script on client), C++ SScript (script on server), C++ runtime, C++ for whatever…
But C++ with full features (a GUI, a framework to produce SQL commands like DBTools.h++ from RogueWave, a ISAMFile engine, a full report engine, support for parallel, and…
For me, we only need C++…. Is elegant, beautiful, versatile, powerfull…
Call me crazy, fill in the holes, or correct my history. Leave your comments below of drop an email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
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