On 2005-07-11, Scott Moore <samiamsansspam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>4. User base. There are still many times the number of users of Pascal
>>>>than those languages.
>>>
>>>With this argument no new languages would ever be accepted.
>>
>>
>> Well, that is actually the practice for more than a decade. Unless a
really
>> large company like Sun or Microsoft does it.
>>
>
> The question is, why is it necessary to change languages every 5 to 10
> years ?
You are confusion an observation with an opinion.
> I believe its all in the mind of the programer.
I think there is actually even more truth in that then you realise.
Simply view from the management perspective that 90% aren't worth much. To
keep that 90% perspective, so called "easy" languages were developed.
That still won't make that 90% equal to good programmers, but at least
they
will have some output.
> Some believe a language is only good if it is fresh and designed from
> scratch. I see beauty as a language that smoothly integrates both the
past
> and the future. Saying that you can only design a worthwhile langauge if
> you dump all of the old is to me a immature attitude.
Correct. However fact is that also the target of the languages has changed
severely over the years. At least, here, till say 5-10 years ago, all
programmers had a higher education, and usually even a quite decent one.
> It says you are only willing to design on a sheet of paper "untainted"
by
> the past. And it clearly shows that language DESIGNERS are not longtime
> language USERS, otherwise they would not be so quick to dump all their
> code into the trash can every 5 years.
That's pretty much true for all the little languages and script languages
popping up. Moreover, I hardly see difference between them.
Java and C# wanted a clean break for their JIT and VM concepts to catch
on,
as well as their (somewhat doubtfull IMHO) OS independance. Most legacy
code
would either use non-safe pointers or OS libs in their view.
> So you can see this as stubborn users. I see it as stubborn language
designers
> who can't deal with reality the way it is.
>
> Archtects, notably, do not work this way. When presented with the idea
of
> designing a new building that fits into the look of the surrounding,
older
> buildings, but still expresses modern advances, most consider that a
> challenge, not a burden.
The trick there is that lower educated architects are called bricklayers.
Just
like lower educated civil engineers are mechanics.
For "programmer" they tried to make a programmer/analyst separation, but
that never caught on enough, and there is no clear difference between the
guy
doing a few bits of javascript on a website, sb making simple automated
forms
in Excel, and sb that maintains a million line product.
Call it an elitist attitude on my behalf, but that is where the confusion
comes from IMHO.
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