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Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

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Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#351

Post by thijsvandien »

dejv wrote: post #213
noonespecial wrote: post #7

Pascal/Delphi Before there was an internet of lightbulbs and smoke detectors, there was an internet of industrial process things. And they used windows 2000 and Delphi. They still do.

I am working on 20 years old codebase that runs accounting, warehouse management, time tracking, invoicing and whatnot monster that power most of the roofing companies in Austria. It is still Delphi 5 + Paradox, developed on Windows XP (I run it from VM on Mac), but work on modern Windows as well. Networking is a bit of problem, but nothing we can't deal with. On the other side, I don't think that Delphi/Pascal is de…

Not unsurprisingly, I'd much recommend getting rid of Paradox. For my projects (several 100KLOCs, most of it DB-related) I relatively easily migrated to Firebird with IBObjects (http://www.ibobjects.com – not affiliated), both of which have been a major success.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#352

Post by jsgrahamus2 »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #262
davidwihl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what in the world do you still write in snobol / spitbol? I haven't heard anyone even mention that language since 1983.

People mention it here on occasion for how it handles string processing. Experts in such things might want to dive deep in a review of it for the rest of us.

Icon was also produced by the same man, Ralph Griswold. And it has inspired a newer incarnation, Unicon. I imagine each would also be pretty good at string processing.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#353

Post by i_feel_great »

Visual Age Smalltalk and Cobol professionally. Company I work for tried 3 times to port to Java, plain JavaScript and now Angular. None can approach the sheer productivity and power of VA Smalltalk.

Pharo/Dolphin Smalltalk, FreePascal, Racket/Chez/Guile/Gambit(via LambdaNative) Scheme, Ada, Erlang, Forth(8th) for speculative/personal projects.

Edit: Bits of LaTeX and groff here and there.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#354

Post by snowwindwaves »

Gracana wrote: post #26

IEC61131-3 family.. very widely used stuff, but definitely feels clunky and old. It's not even fun-retro-old, it's just old-old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61131-3

I have no complaints with these languages. I have only seen them used to program PLCs to control machines and processes, and the simplicity of the languages keeps programs simple and straightforward too.

What features are missing that you think belong in process control?

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#356

Post by mercurialuser »

I will use Clipper open source alternative called Harbour.

I started using Clipper in 1986 and some of 1986 code still runs today. Clipper was a compiler for Ashton tate dbase II language.

Harbour now allows to run old code on windows, linux, Mac, Solaris and a bunch of other less common OSes, both in text mode or using some gui lib. It will also run on android and ios (using Qt).

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#357

Post by Semiapies »

j45 wrote: post #331
Semiapies wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the only two who still enjoy it. :) I'm working on the latest revision of a client's CF intranet app that been in use for fifteen years, now.

A mess can be made in any language :) Be scared to see what today's modern frameworks and their code bases might look like in 10-15 years, because some projects will have that lifespan.

The only real mess is the project's continual struggle against the language's verbosity and limitations. I try not to think too often about how much shorter some section of code would be if it were in Flask or Django.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#358

Post by pizza »

ptaipale wrote: post #241
libraryatnight wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied English lol. My whole career is based on my weekends. My education helps me write eloquent email responses, though.

I'm not a native English speaker. I could throw in that the best thing regarding learning I did (in addition to buying a home computer) was to get J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (which came with the adventure game) which in turn led me to read LOTR and then other books in English, and generally become much more fluent. Later on, wasting time reading NNTP news at the uni was also actually a good investment for learning t…

That's interesting. Whenever my dad wants to become more comfortable with a new language, he reads the translated editions of Harry Potter, too! He's read "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in Dutch, French, Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish, lol.
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