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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?

#271
post #252

ColdFusion/CFML. All day, every day. Although a heavy dose of the newer hotness and the eventual migration of everything I work with off of it is in the works. Still enjoy working with it though. Very productive.

Seems only two of us here.

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.

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

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any suggestions for a bash scripting tutorial to help me better connect the dots? Over the years I've learned some nifty one-liners, but I'm not really familiar enough with the patterns and art of of command-line thinking to solve my own problems in bash. Most of the bash resources I've found online are just loosely organized collections of magic spells. I'd really like to get better at it though.

[Shameless plug] Not too long ago, I wrote a small book that tries to address those kinds of questions, i.e. how to use Bash to solve problems instead of 1-liners. You may find it useful: http://adventuresindatascience.com

The book looks good. Is there a place I can find the table of contents or reviews of your book?

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

#273
post #18

Perl is one of those languages that nobody likes at my work, but that is impossible to get rid of. Java is in the same boat, but at least it's still marketable so engineers don't mind working with it as much.

I once worked at a place that basically just used perl server side. In this decade (2010s). The codebase was just one tangled mess. They told a story of a guy who failed the cultural interview because he told a VP "you can't write a large web app in perl", and of course they had done just that. With the reflection of hind sight I think despite the obvious empirical counter factual, he was on to something. It really w…

I tend to answer "can you...?" questions by pointing out that you can do just about anything in any Turing-complete language. The more useful questions are whether you should, and if not, why not. It sounds like an annoying hair-splitting technical distinction, but I've found it leads to more useful discussions.

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

#274
SquiLu (a fork from Squirrel) it has a good C/C++ extension API (inherited from Lua), it can accept a big chunk of javascript as is and it can also accept a limited chunk of C/C++, it's fast enough and already has a good set of extensions.

https://github.com/mingodad/squilu

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

#275
A business basic language called Providex (or PxPlus depending on the version).

There are several hundred thousand lines of the language in the main application where I work.

While there are definitely some major issues and pain points with it, it's actually suprisingly powerful and the language itself is still being developed.

We've got a lot of things you wouldn't think would be in a BASIC, like classes and object-oriented programming, a "UI" library that targets the web without any (tm) changes (in practice it misses that mark, but it's still extremely useful), support for the big 3 platforms, and more.

I don't deal too much with it though as most of my job is connecting new web stacks up with the pxplus backends.

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

#276
If you can remember the days when applications like Lotus 123 had menus at the bottom of the screen, and if you can imagine a macro scripting language in such an application, designed so that the menu structure directly defined the statements available in the language (e.g. file open standard-view "c:\whatever.vw"), and if you can imagine writing database manipulation routines in such a language (so that you must at all times be mindful of which view is in the foreground and what the currently selected record is, i.e. which record the user would be looking at if this task was being carried out by an actual user rather than a macro script), and if you can imagine a manufacturing company who implemented their own MRP system atop such software, then you have the beginnings of an idea of what I'll be spending 2017 maintaining, and then hopefully decommissioning.

Here's a mention of the software in question from the UK's Unix User Group newsletter in 1995: https://www.ukuug.org/newsletter/linux-newsletter/linux@uk13...

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

#278
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still a bunch of modern Windows desktop applications written in Delphi and C++Builder – I work on one of them. ^_^ I really like Delphi actually. It's a shame Embarcadero doesn't really seem to care about it.

Projects I know I'll need to heavily modify or work on for the foreseeable future, I bring forward into Lazarus. Lazarus has quite a bit of activity in its community.

Lazarus did huge improvements in last 5 years, just MacOS version needs more love.

I keep spending tons of time fighting problems, even with mainstream libraries like sqlite.

Still the best tool for multiplatform desktop apps development.

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

#279
post #171
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still a bunch of modern Windows desktop applications written in Delphi and C++Builder – I work on one of them. ^_^ I really like Delphi actually. It's a shame Embarcadero doesn't really seem to care about it.

Delphi and C++ Builder downfall sadly started when Borland went greedy and started to scare customers with their lack of business focus, specially the spin off.

I think their biggest mistake was trying to follow Microsoft into .Net instead of taking over the native desktop development niche. A native Delphi 8 with some VB6 import tools would have done wonders for them.

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

#280

C (I hate C++) assembler (various) (I've even learned x86_64 well after being a RISC aficionado, it's actually kinda neat) sed bash LaTex I used to use YACC/LEX but that's been replaced with ANTLR for awhile now. What language am I starting to use? Rust and R. I wrote something in PERL once but when I woke up the next day I couldn't really read it. So that was that.

Perl makes it easy to write line noise, and only possible to write legible code. That possibility also goes mostly out the window as soon as you use the real strength of the language (regex).
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