From: David Douthitt <DDouthitt@...>
Date: 2002-08-22T05:01:47+09:00
Subject: Re: What New Language After Ruby?

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David Douthitt
CUNA & Affiliates
UNIX Systems Administrator
ddouthitt@cuna.coop
(608) 231-4922
>>> dan@sidhe.org 8/21/02 1:24PM >>>
> At 11:52 PM +0900 8/21/02, William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:
> >To Andrew Hunt and David Thomas:
> >
> >I think in the book "The Pragmatic Programmer", one of the advices is to
> >learn a new language at least once a year.  Probably for the year 2001 i=
t
> >was Ruby.  Now we are already in August 2002.  Is there any language
> >candidate for this year?
>=20
> Folks have already thrown Lisp, OCaml, Prolog, and Japanese into the
> mix, and Smalltalk is always floating around. Given that those are
> reasonably academic languages (Okay, except for Japanese :) I'll add
> a few of the more low-level or odd languages.
>
> Forth: Backwards Think You Will! But it's also a good way to get your=20
> brain around Postscript. And it's a very different way of thinking=20
> about things.

: NIRVANA
        BEGIN FORTH WORDS LOOP ;    ( :-)

> COBOL: None of this wacky (and really twisted) object-oriented
> COBOL, but the original. While COBOL is the whipping-boy of the
> computer industry, I'd much *much* rather find out that the code
> running my bank or calculating my paycheck was written in COBOL
> than in Java or (god forbid) C.

COBOL is at least readable and usable - and after you've written in RPG, on=
e stops complaining.  Is it any wonder that there is a GNU COBOL and a Tiny=
Cobol but no open source RPG?  Good riddance :-)

For me, I've several languages I've always wanted to learn, but I'm not sur=
e how to get going.  Here's my list of langauges yet to be learned (profici=
ently):

* LISP
* Smalltalk
* Scheme
* Lua
* Eiffel

Funny no one's mentioned Eiffel yet...

Then there's FORTH - problem with FORTH is that every dialect is different =
in significant ways - so the learning curve is not small.  Not only that - =
compare C's 28 keywords to FORTH - a dialect that I used a while back had 3=
50 words at least.

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<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1"=
>
<META content=3D"MSHTML 5.50.4912.300" name=3DGENERATOR></HEAD>
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<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>David Douthitt<BR>CUNA &amp; Affiliates<BR>UNIX Systems Administrator<=
BR><A=20
href=3D"mailto:ddouthitt@cuna.coop">ddouthitt@cuna.coop</A><BR>(608)=20
231-4922<BR>&gt;&gt;&gt; dan@sidhe.org 8/21/02 1:24PM &gt;&gt;&gt;<BR>&gt; =
At=20
11:52 PM +0900 8/21/02, William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:<BR>&gt; &gt;To A=
ndrew=20
Hunt and David Thomas:<BR>&gt; &gt;<BR>&gt; &gt;I think in the book "The 
Pragmatic Programmer", one of the advices is to<BR>&gt; &gt;learn a new lan=
guage=20
at least once a year.&nbsp; Probably for the year 2001 it<BR>&gt; &gt;was 
Ruby.&nbsp; Now we are already in August 2002.&nbsp; Is there any=20
language<BR>&gt; &gt;candidate for this year?<BR>&gt; <BR>&gt; Folks have 
already thrown Lisp, OCaml, Prolog, and Japanese into the</DIV>
<DIV>&gt; mix, and Smalltalk is always floating around. Given that those 
are</DIV>
<DIV>&gt; reasonably academic languages (Okay, except for Japanese :) I'll 
add</DIV>
<DIV>&gt; a few of the more low-level or odd languages.<BR>&gt;<BR>&gt; For=
th:=20
Backwards Think You Will! But it's also a good way to get your <BR>&gt; bra=
in=20
around Postscript. And it's a very different way of thinking <BR>&gt; about=
=20
things.</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>: NIRVANA</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; BEGIN FORTH WORDS LOOP=20
;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ( :-)</DIV>
<DIV><BR>&gt; COBOL: None of this wacky (and really twisted)=20
object-oriented</DIV>
<DIV>&gt; COBOL, but the original. While COBOL is the whipping-boy of the</=
DIV>
<DIV>&gt; computer industry, I'd much *much* rather find out that the code<=
/DIV>
<DIV>&gt; running my bank or calculating my paycheck was written in COBOL</=
DIV>
<DIV>&gt; than in Java or (god forbid) C.</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>COBOL is at least readable and usable - and after you've written in RP=
G,=20
one stops complaining.&nbsp; Is it any wonder that there is a GNU COBOL and=
 a=20
TinyCobol but no open source RPG?&nbsp; Good riddance :-)</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>For me, I've several languages I've always wanted to learn, but I'm no=
t=20
sure how to get going.&nbsp; Here's my list of langauges yet to be learned 
(proficiently):</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>* LISP</DIV>
<DIV>* Smalltalk</DIV>
<DIV>* Scheme</DIV>
<DIV>* Lua</DIV>
<DIV>* Eiffel</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>Funny no one's mentioned Eiffel yet...</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>Then there's FORTH - problem with FORTH is that every dialect is diffe=
rent=20
in significant ways - so the learning curve is not small.&nbsp; Not only th=
at -=20
compare C's 28 keywords to FORTH - a dialect that I used a while back had 3=
50=20
words at least.</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

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