Re: Just an observation

I remember back when I was starting out programming (back in the early
40s) and how I loved learning new languages. I started out with RPG,
and then learned EDL (for the Series/1) and you couldn't stop me from
messing around with the operating system (in the Series/1, the operating
system was written in the primary HLL for the box; it was very cool).
Next I started using assembly language and then Pascal and C. Note that
I had been introduced to all these languages previously, along with
standard CS 101 languages like Fortran and BASIC. But this was real
programming, and I ate it up.

Back then, it wasn't about staking turf for a specific language or OS.
In fact, most programmers didn't argue about such things. There were a
few uber-nerds who argued about the superiority of the Z80 instruction
set, or CP/M vs PC-DOS, but those were few and far between. Not that
they weren't vehement; one of my favorite ongoing arguments was the
raging debate between Pascal and C syntax. In Pascal, the equality
operator is one character ("=") and the assignment operator is two
(":="). As you know, in C and its derivatives, assignment is one
character ("=") and equality is two ("=="). There would be screaming
matches about this, with the C advocates actually doing statistical
analysis of code to prove that there were more assignments than
comparisons, and thus C was more productive.

Those people were considered... eccentric. They were the guys who not
only actually owned their own Star Trek uniform, but considered it
appropriate business attire. Meanwhile, the rest of us were just trying
to figure out how to get the stupid cash register to answer the modem,
or how to insert TTDs into a bisync data stream.

Nowadays, these sorts of arguments seem to be the norm. Rather than
talking about solutions, discussion forums consistently devolve into
arguments about syntax or the "rightness" of SQL vs. native or any of a
million other issues that aren't really germane to solving business
problems. Thankfully David manages to keep these lists the best in the
Infoverse, but we're not immune.

I don't know how to fix it. I have an idea, but it would take way more
work than any one person could do. I just wonder whether it's worth it
to try and create a medium where the discussion is entirely about
business solutions. No threads about the name of the machine, or the
impending death of RPG, or how ILE is better/worse than .Net, or indeed
any sort of opinion-based discussion. Instead, just a pure,
unadulterated focus on problems and solutions.

Joe