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Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

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151–160 of 338 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#151
post #56

I use a language originally called MUMPS, with the alternate name of M, which is the core language in Cache Object Script. I use it because it has features that are still not (really) included in more "modern" languages, because it is actively used in niche markets, and because I've used it for 34 years, so I have a lot of experience in it and tools written in it. It is incredibly terse, which allows for use in tight…

Can't have a mention of MUMPS without the classic:

http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#152
post #34

Pascal - still use it today. I started with Turbo Pascal 3.0, went through several versions of Borland Pascal (DOS and Windows), several versions of Delphi, and am now using FreePascal. I do most of my work on Linux nowadays. Pascal still gets everything done and after 20+ years I am really fluent in it. Did a little bit of Javascript with Node.js, also looked at Golang. While I did like some aspects of them, there w…

Holy cow! I used Pascal at college about 16 years ago. I never thought I would see it used in the wild, especially in 2016. Nicely done!

Some other in the wild examples, the WHATWG has a tool called Wattsi that's written in Object Pascal: https://github.com/whatwg/wattsi

Interesting blog post from last year on someone's experiences developing an application in Object Pascal: http://ziotom78.blogspot.com/2015/01/lfi-data-analysis-with-...

Free Pascal itself: http://www.freepascal.org/

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#153
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He writes bank software. In BASIC. For forty years. At the same company" I would have gone insane :)

He didn't say his father was still sane ;-)

I had a good laugh at your comment and the parent's because I think I've said "I would have gone insane.", or "Are you insane?" to him more than a few times.

And yet he's more sane than me. He's a funny fellow.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#154

My dad uses and has used BASIC. He's not a teacher, nor a hobbyist. He writes bank software. In BASIC. For forty years. At the same company. UBS, Bank of China, and other names all run this massive million(s)-line BASIC codebase, that he almost singlehandedly wrote, on minicomputers[1] powered by OpenVMS. With it, according to my father, they process billion dollars worth of transactions and other facets of their bus…

Write a compiler for this dialect of BASIC for Linux.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#155

I admin/dev on an old LDMud, which means the "game" is written in LPC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPC_(programming_language) Perhaps not a terribly interesting addition to your list, since the reason is obvious: I keep using it because it's the language the game is written in. That said, I'll play along and discuss what I like about the language: One of the fun things about working on an LDMud or in LPC is that th…

Man, I loved LPMuds back in the day. I remember being so impressed when I (my character) was sitting around in a pub with a friend, and all of a sudden he put on a hockey mask, whipped out a chainsaw, cut off my arm, and started beating me on the head with it. And I actually couldn't do anything that required me using my arm. Apparently he coded that whole thing up while we were sitting in the pub.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#156
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I'm absolutely serious. JavaScript is a farcical joke, yet no one's laughing.

try typescript, if you haven't already, its very nice. Doesn't help with the browser part unfortunately, but at least gets rid of the javascript oddities.

Or literally just a linter and ES6.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#157
post #86
post #8

Perl and C here mostly. C89, that is. Both are widely used languages, just not in the startup space. a lot of our stuff is built on those languages so it wouldn't make sense to rewrite a lot of the stuff at this point unless there was a business case for it.

So I'm not alone :) Perl and C everyday ;)

Me too, Perl most days, C most weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#158

Prolog. It fits my brain.

I really suspect Prolog would fit my brain, but I have trouble thinking of real-world scenarios where it would be useful to hack in. Other than the tutorials out there that focus on toy problems, what are some other examples of where Prolog is actually a good technology fit for side projects?

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#159
I've recently fallen for Standard ML. It's been a steep learning curve due to all the compilers and implementation choices but what a mind bending approach to software development. OCaml seems to be the obvious next step but I'm having fun with toy programs in Standard ML right now.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use an old or 'unfashionable' programming language?

#160

I predominantly work in Perl 5, which probably isn't quite to the point of being something one can write off completely as out of the spotlight. And, I'm launching a new thing soon which, despite having looked at a number of alternatives, will likely also be in Perl. Familiarity and a big ecosystem that I'm already familiar with is a pretty big win. I happen to work in the systems management space, which was long dom…

As long as you get to use PHP 7 and one of the more modern frameworks modern PHP is actually quite pleasant to work with.
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