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Conference turris::languages

Title:	Languages
Notice:	Speaking In Tongues
Moderator:	TLE::TOKLAS::FELDMAN

Created:	Sat Jan 25 1986
Last Modified:	Wed May 21 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	394
Total number of notes:	2683

4.0. "Use Appropriate Language" by XENON::STANSBURY () Mon Jan 16 1984 13:22

This note is in reply to all the comments in Note #1 about people's
"favorite languages". Some people say that C is a terrible language, 
others say that Bliss is awful, while others advocate the use of FOCAL.

Why must people be so antagonistic towards a particular language? Most
(all?) languages are developed to suit a particular need (e.g., COBOL
for business applications), or to suit a wide variety of needs (e.g., 
BASIC).

I believe that a programmer should use the particular language best
suited for the program he/she is writing (within the realm of those
languages known to the programmer). If you are writing a business
application, you may want to write in COBOL (assuming you know COBOL).
If you are writing a system-type program to be run on VAXes, you may
want to write in BLISS. If you are writing a game program to be run on
a micro, you may want to use BASIC. Etc.

All languages have their advantages and their disadvantages. You have to
consider those when you make the decision on what language to use. (This
implies you first have to KNOW the advantages and disadvantages.) You
can't simply dismiss a language because it's "too wordy" or "it's too
low-level"!

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
4.1		KOALA::ROBINS		`Sat Mar 17 1984 21:32`	3
	here,here! that was the first rational comment so far!
4.2		GIGI::MERRILL		`Wed Mar 21 1984 15:10`	4
	What's appropriate for the goose may not be appropriate for the gander! In other words the user's opinion is a major portion of the decision - they don't HAVE to LIKE it, but it sure helps.
4.3		NY1MM::MUSLIN		`Sun Jul 01 1984 13:08`	19
	~ Flame On ~ Writing in different languages has one problem - maintainability. I wrote some stuff for our computer center in FORTRAN, Bliss (a little), Macro, DCL, and C. How many people are there in the "real world", do you think, that know all of the above? I do some technical interviewing for Software positions. It's hard enough to find a person in the "real world" who knows one/two languages well. Do you know many FORTRAN programmers don't know what COMMON or EQUIVALENCE statements are? Do you know how many Pascal programmers don't understand the idea of passing parameters by reference vs. value (and think if we were doing things in ALGOL how many would be able to explain about passing parameters by name and using Thunks???!)? The world is full of such people (what do they teach them in Community Colleges anyway?). Not many smart managers would be willing to accept systems written in a dozen of languages. ~ Flame Off (Ooof) ~ -\- Victor -/-
4.4		VLNVAX::AMARTIN		`Sun Jul 01 1984 13:51`	10
	Hear, hear! Of course, if you can combine them all, then it at least gives you the option of writing 90% of your application in X, and the other 10% in Y. (No I don't mean the actual language "Y"). What they teach in Community Colleges has apparently been exposed in the "Structured Programming is just a Fad" note in this file. Come to think of it, I am going to try "What do you think of structured programming?" in my next interview. It beats "Where do you see yourself in n years?". /AHM
4.5	yesterday I learned Chinese	ISTG::WISNER	Paul Wisner	`Wed Aug 26 1987 18:50`	9
	Irrelivant, you reach a point where you could learn a new language in a week or two. In many cases its just a matter of minor syntactic differences (Pascal vs. Fortran vs. C). At some colleges they only teach students Pascal, and then if they take a course that requires a new language, they are expected to learn it on there own in a couple of weeks.