| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 154.1 | An opinion | COMICS::DEMORGAN | Richard De Morgan, UK CSC/CS | Wed Nov 25 1987 11:01 | 28 |
| This is a diificult one to answer: probably the best source for
an analysis would be the number of licences we sell - at least in
so far as DEC customers are concerned (but beware of the possibility
that not all users are properly licenced).
However, some general off-the-cuff answers:
Fortran and Pascal are probably the most widely used scientific
languages - I have no idea is what relative ratios, but the constant
fiasco over FORTRAN standardization may effect things.
COBOL is probably the most widely used commercial language.
However: Ada usage is probably increasing exponentially; PL/I and Algol
68 are on the way out. MODULA 2 is being increasingly used
in real-time environments, but I thing Ada will win, especially
when there are more well-trained programmers for it available. I
doubt that there is much future for APL.
So-called 4GL languages will probably flourish, but there are so
many of them that it is difficult to see any eminence there (FORTH
maybe?).
No doubt there will be plenty of people who will disagree with that
- please don't accept it as being in any way authoratitive - just
my personal views. BTW I support Ada, Pascal, PL/I and APL for UK
Country Support (I'm not too sure about the latter two!). When I
program and have a choice, I use Ada.
|
| 154.2 | | DCC::JAERVINEN | Don't make your personal name too long | Thu Nov 26 1987 04:52 | 5 |
| You forgot C (my pet hate language [it's not a language but a mental
sickness]).
:-)
|
| 154.3 | Aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhh!!! | COMICS::DEMORGAN | Richard De Morgan, UK CSC/CS | Thu Nov 26 1987 05:05 | 3 |
| I always try to forget C. I'd rather live on a desert island than
be forced to program in that wretched abortion of a language. I
hope it will go away.
|
| 154.4 | | DCC::JAERVINEN | Don't make your personal name too long | Thu Nov 26 1987 05:39 | 2 |
| So do I, but I think we're going to loose...
|
| 154.5 | Oh yeah? Well, your mother wears army boots! | SMURF::REEVES | Jon Reeves | Wed Dec 02 1987 09:24 | 8 |
| Whatever you may think of its syntax (I happen to like it), C remains
the only widely available language suitable for systems programming.
Alas, there's too much poorly documented C code out there, and that
may warp some people's view of the language. C, like APL, is a
language that has powerful tools that may tempt the novice into
writing unreadable code, but C can be well structured and readable.
Now, where did I put that asbestos suit...
|
| 154.6 | We have other notes for language flames | MOIRA::FAIMAN | Ontology Recapitulates Philology | Wed Dec 02 1987 09:47 | 11 |
| Not that I would want to discourage language wars, but we already
have a few notes devoted to them. Notes 8, 54, 87, 97, and 130
might be appropriate. Let's leave this note for discussion of
its original topic:
> Can anyone quote me a source to show what percentage's of what
> languages are used in the world?
Thank you.
-Neil (moderator)
|
| 154.7 | Hope the moderator allows this | WELSWS::DODD | | Fri Dec 18 1987 05:24 | 11 |
| Surveys are published occasionally I don't have one to hand.
Opinions follow.
The bulk of the world application code is COBOL or FORTRAN.
Assemblers of various flavours probably account for at least as
much.
Surveys usually ignore PCs (so do we!) where I suspect the majoriyty
is BASIC. An awful lot of minis use BASIC ( VAXes and RSTS etc).
UK schools write BASIC... A much underestimated language.
Andrew Dodd UK SWAS Welwyn
|