RE: RTFM (was: CPYF behavior)

Don wrote:
>Actually, I'm hoping that one day the industry gets tired of all these
>spurious new languages that keep popping up like dandy lions...  I'd like
>to see industry grab ONE language and then finally make the standard that
>the compiler and language definition would modify in a standardized way so
>that we don't have all these 32790 different languages, dialects and
>releases that we have to contend with.
>
>My guess is that it would look like C or PL/I, have the portability of
>java...whatever definition of portability you believe this week...:)
>
>Hey, I can dream, right? :)

Hey, I dream of winning the lottery, quitting my job, and spending
my leisure time building a basement-filling model railroad!

But back to reality - I think my dream has a greater chance of
happening than the computer industry adopting one general-purpose
programming language.  Each language in use today serves a different
purpose and appeals to different needs and audiences.  For instance,
to start with you have compiled languages and interpreted languages.
Compiled languages appeal to those who think application performance
is important and interpreted languages are good for those who need
to develop powerful applications quickly.  Some languages are good
for business applications, some good for scientific and engineering
apps, others good for web apps, etc, etc.

Well, some people have been saying that if you don't know Java,
you'll end up flipping burgers for a living.  While I don't buy that
argument completely, they do have a point - new languages have
appeared, and by and large, languages like Java and Perl are good,
and I think AS/400 programmers can learn a thing or two from them.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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