Comments | flwyd: "There probably won't be any BASIC in the 21st Century"

flwyd

"There probably won't be any BASIC in the 21st Century"

Nov 12, 2009 19:10

More gems from 1986's Programmers At Work, this one from Butler Lampson: That’s why I think the idea of computer literacy is such a rotten one. By computer literacy I mean learning to use the current generation of BASIC and word-processing programs. That has nothing to do with reality. It’s true that a lot of jobs now require BASIC programming, but ( Read more... )

program, quote, basic

Comments 2

bike4fish November 13 2009, 07:25:28 UTC

COBOL has some often overlooked advantages, especially in large, transaction-oriented systems ( ... )

flwyd November 14 2009, 17:53:22 UTC

All that said, I never especially enjoyed writing COBOL. But I recognize that it had (and, in some instances, still has) a lot going for it.

Clearly the language has advantages, since it had plenty of competition back in the day. Yet somehow it seems the entire programmer zeitgeist issues a shudder whenever COBOL is mentioned. Maybe the COBOL fans keep to themselves for fear of ridicule, but I've never heard anyone say "I love COBOL!" As the linked article concludes, COBOL: so vibrantly alive, yet … so very, very dead.

I suspect many industries have products that are widely used and universally reviled. Many of them might even be written in COBOL...