On May 10, 7:50=A0pm, Ibeam2000 <Ibeam2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> One of my theories regarding the popularity of certain computer
> languages over others is what I call the "right brain component". =A0I
> think that one of the goals of certain computer languages, notably
> COBOL and Java, was to reduce the right brain component necessary for
> an individual to be functional in that language. =A0Today, in their
> respective arenas, Cobol and Java have shown some remarkable staying
> power. =A0To a slightly lesser extent, the same is true for .Net, which
> is reportedly gaining mindshare. =A0Management seems to go for this.
>
> APL and J have a rather high right brain component needed for one to
> be functional (pun intended). =A0Arguably, C and most assembler
> languages also have a high right brain component, as you really need
> to get creative sometimes with the tools that you have to have a
> solution. =A0C achieved immense popularity by being in the right place
> at the right time and being small and portable. =A0Java, which purports
> to be more a copy of C than C++, is sold on the grounds of being
> extremely sanitary.
>
> Having said that, I suspect that Java and the main .Net languages
> (newspeak) had been created to help outsource work to places where
> left brain work is a commodity. =A0Certainly the work flow software such
> as Visual Studio comes with a team edition which allows the managed
> collaboration of hundreds of programmers. =A0Until now, there hasn't
> been a Bangalore Basic, but soon enough, this brave new culture will
> learn to fuse left and right brain thinking for some really creative
> problem solving,
>
> Is "programmer/analyst" still a job title?
A lot of the problems with C is the out of bounds assignments and
excessive use of memory.
a) In an analogy to APL you might have a 10 by 10 matrix and a
programmer might be asking for element in row 15 column 15 and the
compiler would not object at all.
b) Another problem with C is that the program asks for memory say 10K
every times it is called and the program may never release the memory
after use.
After some time a) and b) would sometimes run for a while, could ruin
other programs by reaching into their space a) and taking all
available space b)
For small programs it may not be very obvious what these programs are
doing and there are millions of such programs around.
There are bounds checkers to assist C programmers take care of a) kind
of problems.
There is a general rule of closing down windows once in a while to
take care of b)
A lot of programmers make a) and b) kind of mistakes all the time and
they can not use Java because they feel they are put into
straightjackets because Java has(/had?) boundschecker built in so a)
kind of programs where not as easily made.
a) kind of problem would not be possible for long in APL and b) kind
of problems all (most?) APLs take care of for you.
I have been involved in fixing a few systems written in C and the
first thing I do now adays when I come to such a project is to put
asserts all over the place to get rid of a) kind of problems before
they become to bad.
It may seem to be silly that these kind of problems be allowed to
occur but the industry does seem to favor allowing users to make a)
and b)
What seems to be obvious is that a language like C is popular because
it allows you to do anything.
It will take a long time to find out the silly programming people do
using C.
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