Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

COBOL on Wheelchair

azac.pl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 43 posts

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#11

Post by malandrew »

I'm usually not one to get offended and and I'm not going to say the author is horrible person like some jerks around here that get offended by non-PC stuff, but it comes across as possibly a tad offensive to use a wheelchair as a jab at Ruby on Rails. I know it's a play on Cobol being old, but a lot of people confined to wheel chairs are young, in the prime of their life and extremely capable in other areas of their areas of expertise. Anyways, I leave it to the author to think whether or not this has merit, because it's not really my place to judge since I'm not in a wheelchair myself.

TBH I was expecting this to be about someone actually hacking on the cobol that runs their wheelchair.

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#12

Post by wglb »

mcfist wrote: post #7

"The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it." but very nice graphics )

But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it

This was my motto until i did a year or so consulting in RPG-III.

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#15

Post by static_typed »

The fact is COBOL is still used, and useful today, all these decades later. I wonder what the sentiment about Ruby on Fails will be in thirty years time, and I don't think we will still be using it.

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#16

Post by lhgaghl »

malandrew wrote: post #11

I'm usually not one to get offended and and I'm not going to say the author is horrible person like some jerks around here that get offended by non-PC stuff, but it comes across as possibly a tad offensive to use a wheelchair as a jab at Ruby on Rails. I know it's a play on Cobol being old, but a lot of people confined to wheel chairs are young, in the prime of their life and extremely capable in other areas of their…

> I know it's a play on Cobol being old

err... just from reading the title, I assumed it was a play on cobol being disadvantaged, but being old would also imply being disadvantaged physically. metaphorically speaking it makes perfect sense on first read... You seem to be using eval() on human language

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#17

Post by vorg »

malandrew wrote: post #11

I'm usually not one to get offended and and I'm not going to say the author is horrible person like some jerks around here that get offended by non-PC stuff, but it comes across as possibly a tad offensive to use a wheelchair as a jab at Ruby on Rails. I know it's a play on Cobol being old, but a lot of people confined to wheel chairs are young, in the prime of their life and extremely capable in other areas of their…

> offensive to use a wheelchair as a jab at Ruby on Rails

Fortress on Freeway, Clojure on clouds.

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#18

Post by vorg »

static_typed wrote: post #15

The fact is COBOL is still used, and useful today, all these decades later. I wonder what the sentiment about Ruby on Fails will be in thirty years time, and I don't think we will still be using it.

The 2 program samples in Cobol and Html shown together made me realize just how verbose Html really is, which makes me think we will still be using Html in 30 yrs time.

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#19

Post by Mikeb85 »

static_typed wrote: post #15

The fact is COBOL is still used, and useful today, all these decades later. I wonder what the sentiment about Ruby on Fails will be in thirty years time, and I don't think we will still be using it.

Ruby will still be used years from now. Rails, probably not, but Ruby is a good language in its domain (scripting, dynamic languages).

Re: COBOL on Wheelchair

#20

Post by yareally »

lhgaghl wrote: post #16
malandrew wrote: post #11

I'm usually not one to get offended and and I'm not going to say the author is horrible person like some jerks around here that get offended by non-PC stuff, but it comes across as possibly a tad offensive to use a wheelchair as a jab at Ruby on Rails. I know it's a play on Cobol being old, but a lot of people confined to wheel chairs are young, in the prime of their life and extremely capable in other areas of their…

> I know it's a play on Cobol being old err... just from reading the title, I assumed it was a play on cobol being disadvantaged, but being old would also imply being disadvantaged physically. metaphorically speaking it makes perfect sense on first read... You seem to be using eval() on human language

If one spent enough time, they could even find "Ruby on Rails" offensive, in some misconstrued way as the word "rails" can be derived as conformist and against free thinking as one is confined to "rails." I don't think it's any of that, but just alluding that spend enough time dissecting anything and someone is bound to find issue with it.

I think the overall gist is that we developers are not always marketing people, so we spend more time on making whatever it is and less on the name. Naming things is a hassle, especially when you have no intention on making it a marketable product.

Post reply on HN