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

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

#201

Post by harel »

borplk wrote: post #173
harel wrote: post #101

Although I mainly write code in Python, JavaScript and Go, I have a SaaS web application that was written in the early 2000s using ColdFusion (CFML) which I still support (started at v5 and now runs on v8). In the mid to late nineties (and early 00s) it was one of the best ways to write web applications (it was actually the first Application server as far as I know). But today is 2016 and ColdFusion is one of the lea…

just curious what kind of SaaS application is it?

I was trying to avoid the details but because you asked: Its a CRM application. Surprisingly (to me) its has a very large user base.

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

#202

Post by harel »

mwpmaybe wrote: post #120
harel wrote: post #101

Although I mainly write code in Python, JavaScript and Go, I have a SaaS web application that was written in the early 2000s using ColdFusion (CFML) which I still support (started at v5 and now runs on v8). In the mid to late nineties (and early 00s) it was one of the best ways to write web applications (it was actually the first Application server as far as I know). But today is 2016 and ColdFusion is one of the lea…

ColdFusion was a breath of fresh air in the mid-to-late '90s when the predominant technologies were CGI/Perl and ASP/VBScript (pre-.NET). I used to love showing other programmers e.g. "Here's how you create a database connection, execute a query, and iterate through a recordset in ASP (40 lines of opaque nonsense)... and here's how you do it in ColdFusion (cfquery, cfloop)." It enabled us to quickly deliver a lot of…

The compare-to-ASP scenario was my go to "there you go" shtick when trying to demonstrate the platform to ASP developers. And yes. It was expensive, and still is, considering there are free alternatives.

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

#203

Post by innertracks »

auxym wrote: post #12

The only language I use these days at work is Tcl, as it's the embedded scripting language in the app we use for post-processing finite element analysis [1] results. Thus I use it for small scripts to make various data extraction and processing faster. It's main strength is also it's main weakness: the whole everything is a string concept, even code. It makes the language both very simple to grasp at first and then a…

TCL/EXPECT was a huge help when I needed tp automate data extraction from a health clinic practice management system. The available interfaces didn't give all the data. Decoding the custom data formats, file layouts, etc... wasn't going well. Scripting the character based UI with TCL/EXPECT was pretty cool including the error handling. If a bit hacky.

I was surprised to find out my temporary solution was still running without a hiccup 5 years after I left. Yes, I was younger then and hadn't learn to appreciate the life expectancy of temporary solutions.

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

#204

Post by orionblastar »

I used to make a living programming in Visual BASIC and ASP before the Dotnet era had changed them.

I have a Windows XP Virtual machine with Visual BASIC 6.0 on it and IIS with ASP 3.0 on it.

I wrote a few sample programs in VB 6.0 and ASP 3.0 but I don't have any clients to develop for it. I call it legacy programming to write for older languages.

The problem is the people and businesses using the older technology cannot afford to upgrade to the latest technology and cannot afford to hire a programmer to write software for them.

I also heard that NASA uses older computers like old 8088/8086 PC clones because of the legacy software they have that runs on it that won't run on modern systems. They buy them from eBay because they aren't made anymore.

Ironic that they could use a virtual machine with DOS on it emulating an 8088 to run the software, but I guess they need access to the serial and parallel ports that don't exist on modern systems since USB replaced them.

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

#205

Post by TTPrograms »

arcanus wrote: post #147
marcell wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "./" vs. "./" Is this a typo? It seems like two instances of the same thing

Ooops -- './' vs. '/.', e.g. right array vs. left array

It doesn't seem like '/.' is an operator. Do you mean './' vs '.\'? That tends to match my intuition.

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

#206

Post by eggy »

sotojuan wrote: post #143
_nato_ wrote: post #82

I use Erlang/OTP as my go-to language. The flack about its ugly syntax certainly puts Erlang in the unfashionable camp. But unjustly. I use it because I like single assignment of variables, pattern-matching, and I also think FP is pretty swell. Someone said recently that the Erlang community could be as small as one-thousand serious hackers. Now that's relatively small!

Erlang/OTP is becoming fashionable again thanks to Elixir :-).

And LFE, Lisp Flavored Erlang brings the BEAM and OTP to Lispers! I play with LFE, so I can not say I use it, but it fits your unfashionable descriptor.

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

#207

Post by pfooti »

I write a fair bit of Apex for salesforce. I can't say I enjoy it, but it is the only game in town. My org uses salesforce for a lot of day to day stuff, and there is a lot you can do with users on cheap licenses if you're willing to write custom controllers for it.

I'm not sure if this is so much old or unfashionable, as Apex is pretty similar to java 6, but it is just not what I would call a "fun" language.

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

#208

Post by TTPrograms »

wallacoloo wrote: post #170
arcanus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also dislike R. Strongly disagree with the argument that MATLAB is more clear than python, however. Have you tried numpy/scipy? Provides excellent performance and very powerful APIs. I've always found that a great deal of the MATLAB syntax does not gel with my expectations. "./" vs. "./" for instance, or using parenthesis to address array elements. I would much prefer a truely OO capable language, as well.

The real killer about Matlab is its one-based indexing. Makes arithmetic index operations look ugly (and unintuitive) as hell.

It's one-based indexing combined with length being defined as the number of entries, IIRC. There was a blog post on here a few months ago that explained how you need one or the other to minimize the need for off-by-one corrections, though I can't find it now.

I'd consider switching to numpy (ignoring organizational issues) if it didn't take 10 times as many characters to describe all the operations. If you're spending you're day doing algorithm development having least squares and every linear algebra operation you can think of as first class citizens is a huge plus for readability and code cleanliness.

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