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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?

#171

Post by pjmlp »

PeCaN wrote: post #35
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.

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.

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

#172

Post by collyw »

geebee wrote: post #146
danso wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still teach SQL, via SQLite, as a first language to students, even though in practice I do 90% of my data analysis through the command line or Pandas. But SQL is very direct and clear as a language, and the overhead of SQLite is...well, light. Making an index is just one more line of code that for many datasets, you run once and never touch again. What do you find simpler in terms of data querying and management?

I love sql myself. I'm not sure why I love it so much and other people hate it. Sometimes I think that coming up with reasons is just after the fact justification (do I really like it because it has a solid mathematical foundation in the relational calculus, or does that just sound like a good reason to say I like it)? Pandas is an excellent contribution to data analysis, but I gotta tell you, I was absolutely deligh…

I agree, I was always so so about SQL until I had to use a lot of it. The syntax isn't amazing, but the relational model works really well once you can think in sets. The declarative nature of it means that if I push stuff from the app layer to the database layer its usually less buggy and has better performance.

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

#174

Post by peterkelly »

As a hobby this year I'm beginning to experiment with mechanical computer designs, implemented in Lego Technics (yes, really). That's going to involve looking back to Turing machines, Babbage's difference engine, the Pascaline, and various other contraptions. I guess you could consider the means of encoding instructions for such machines to be programming languages, albeit very primitive ones.

Here's a couple of machines that others have built:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTSAiF9AHN4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_u3hpYMySk

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

#175

Post by Insanity »

libraryatnight wrote: post #151
chubot wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too true. When I was 13 or so, I read the DOS 5.0 manual from cover to cover. If I recall, a lot of it was about batch files (autoexec.bat and stuff). Batch was really my first "programming" experience. Then when I was 22, after a good computer science education, my first job was working at EA, and the build system involved a bunch of batch files. That knowledge from nearly a decade before came in handy! The CS stuff…

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

Eloquent email responsed are not to be underestimated, being able to communicate in clear language is a valuable skill.

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

#177

Post by collyw »

tmaly wrote: post #138

Perl 5, I have been using it in Financial Services for the past 12 years. It is still a workhorse when it comes to reporting. Many large banks still use it, but most don't advertise it. I used it at places like Intel back in 1999. It really is a versatile language.

I switched to Python a few years back mainly for Django, but Perl still does a number of things better (regexes, interacting with the filesystem for example).

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

#178

Post by agumonkey »

aerique wrote: post #119

Lisp, and specifically Common Lisp although the latter isn't that old. It first appeared in 1984 and the ANSI specification was finished in 1994, but it traces its lineage directly back to Lisp 1.5 from 1962. It can run Lisp sources decades older than it trivially. It is a very practical, multi-paradigm language with high quality, high performance implementations on many platforms. Its main issue is that it is not ve…

I'll add elisp there.
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