At 07:20 2018-02-15, "Paul H. Tarver" paul@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!"
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
Cheers Gene - I agree with all you have said!!!
:-)
-K-
On 2/15/2018 2:00 PM, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
At 07:20 2018-02-15, "Paul H. Tarver" paul@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!"
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
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Love the definitions!
John
John Weller 01380 723235 07976 393631
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."
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
Laurie
On 17 February 2018 at 13:01, John Weller john@johnweller.co.uk wrote:
Love the definitions!
John
John Weller 01380 723235 07976 393631
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."
[excessive quoting removed by server]
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:02 AM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
The only differentiation I might make is whether there are implementations still out in the world. Pascal and Fortran have more or less complete and free compilers available (see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_%28programming_language%29 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Pascal
for example) and so there are niche specialties that continue to use them for specialized applications.
Contrast those with zombie languages where you have to find 20-year-old floppy-disk or CD-based installers to install a proprietary IDE on a new machine. Those are walking dead.
On Mon, 19 Feb 2018, at 11:49 AM, Ted Roche wrote:
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:02 AM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
The only differentiation I might make is whether there are implementations still out in the world. Pascal and Fortran have more or less complete and free compilers available .
In the case of Pascal there's also Delphi and Oxygene in the commercial products world. Pascal is far from a zombie language.
On Mon, 19 Feb 2018, at 11:49 AM, Ted Roche wrote:
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:02 AM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
The only differentiation I might make is whether there are implementations still out in the world. Pascal and Fortran have more or less complete and free compilers available .
And the same could be said of Fortran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
61 years old, major player in weather modeling, climate change, nuclear power/weapons, astronomy. Big use on supercomputers.
Prolly not what you'll write your next smartphone app in, but still something with a place.
Old languages die slowly - as we well know!
I was brought up on Algol 60, Algol 68 with Fortran 4 being as far as I got before I moved on to Cobol and then to RM Cobol when "personal PC's " came of age.
I don't know whether it is still true but RM Cobol (Ryan McFarland) was for a long time touted to be THE most popular programming language out there as it used standard Structured Cobol with additions and eventually even moved on to encompass OOP thinking!.
Many, many mainframe systems are still written in Cobol - personally I hated it and was relieved to move on to Assembler coding at Singer/ICL before discovering the FOX!
Dave Crozier Software Development Manager Flexipol Packaging Ltd.
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-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Ted Roche Sent: 19 February 2018 13:30 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: Re: New Term: Zombie Language
On Mon, 19 Feb 2018, at 11:49 AM, Ted Roche wrote:
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:02 AM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
The only differentiation I might make is whether there are implementations still out in the world. Pascal and Fortran have more or less complete and free compilers available .
And the same could be said of Fortran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
61 years old, major player in weather modeling, climate change, nuclear power/weapons, astronomy. Big use on supercomputers.
Prolly not what you'll write your next smartphone app in, but still something with a place.
-- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com
_______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/CACW6n4tBYGv_v22z06qFw3g0gnvL_2CSJb89... ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
On 2018-02-19 07:15, Alan Bourke wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2018, at 11:49 AM, Ted Roche wrote:
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:02 AM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
The only differentiation I might make is whether there are implementations still out in the world. Pascal and Fortran have more or less complete and free compilers available .
In the case of Pascal there's also Delphi and Oxygene in the commercial products world. Pascal is far from a zombie language.
Pascal was one of my first true programming language loves. Beautiful language from my recollection of 30 years ago.
Does anyone remember PL/I?
On 20/02/18 13:00, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:
On 2018-02-19 07:15, Alan Bourke wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2018, at 11:49 AM, Ted Roche wrote:
On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:02 AM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
I guess FORTRAN & PASCAL would qualify.
The only differentiation I might make is whether there are implementations still out in the world. Pascal and Fortran have more or less complete and free compilers available .
In the case of Pascal there's also Delphi and Oxygene in the commercial products world. Pascal is far from a zombie language.
Pascal was one of my first true programming language loves. Beautiful language from my recollection of 30 years ago.
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Some big companies are still using it... not popular though.
On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 1:08 AM, Ricardo Araoz ricaraoz@gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone remember PL/I?
-
Alan Bourke -
AndyHC -
Dave Crozier -
Gene Wirchenko -
John Weller -
Kurt at VRFX -
Laurie Alvey -
Man-wai Chang -
mbsoftwaresolutions＠mbsoftwaresolutions.com -
Ricardo Araoz -
Ted Roche