Ruby vs. Rails

Ruby
41

Rich M. wrote:

At 1:56 PM +0900 10/11/06, Hal F. wrote:

And let’s not mention COBOL.

Although COBOL is not my favorite tool, I don’t know of
any arguably superior replacements for it (all things
considered) in the environments where it is used.

PL/I and Ada '95. But the current ISO COBOL has finally lost most of
COBOL’s worst faults, if you include the new option that finally repairs
the decades-old botching of the COMPUTE statement.

42

John W. Kennedy wrote:

Rich M. wrote:

At 1:56 PM +0900 10/11/06, Hal F. wrote:

And let’s not mention COBOL.

Although COBOL is not my favorite tool, I don’t know of
any arguably superior replacements for it (all things
considered) in the environments where it is used.

PL/I and Ada '95.

PL/I was intended to replace both Fortran and COBOL. In fact it did
neither. Is PL/I even still in use today? I don’t recall seeing an open
source PL/I compiler.

Ada, on the other hand, was intended to be a language for managing large
projects. I think it was a beautiful design, as far as I know it is
still in use today, and there is in fact an open source compiler.

So … one out of two ain’t bad, eh?

43

At 1:56 PM +0900 10/11/06, Hal F. wrote:

And let’s not mention COBOL.

Although COBOL is not my favorite tool, I don’t know of
any arguably superior replacements for it (all things
considered) in the environments where it is used.

That’s what Java’s for these days. The AS/400 Java implementation is
top-notch, and it would have to be if you wanted to get people to
rewrite two decades of RPG and COBOL in it.

So, enjoy your sports car, but don’t disparage the
semi in the next lane over…

Think of the damage it’s doing to the environment, though…

Ruby: Emissions Trading for Geeks.

Martin

44

Well, there’s JPL/I.

Bill

45

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

neither. Is PL/I even still in use today?
Yes.

I don’t recall seeing an open
source PL/I compiler.

There have been some efforts to genericize the old (F) compiler (though
it was written in assembler), which IBM published freely back in the
60’s, when virtually all software was more or less open source, and
someone else is working on a gcc-based PL/I compiler right now. See
comp.lang.pl1. In any case, PL/I is still very much available on IBM
mainframes – in fact, a brand-new compiler just came out a few years
ago.

The bad news is that it still lacks OO.

Ada, on the other hand, was intended to be a language for managing large
projects. I think it was a beautiful design, as far as I know it is
still in use today, and there is in fact an open source compiler.

Ada 2005 is out.

Many features of Ada, by the way, were designed with the philosophy,
“PL/I had a good idea, but got it wrong; let’s see if we can do better.”

46

Ada, on the other hand, was intended to be a language for managing
large
projects. I think it was a beautiful design, as far as I know it is
still in use today, and there is in fact an open source compiler.

So … one out of two ain’t bad, eh?

Ada never took off outside defence and aerospace industries, so it’s
now intrinsically associated with them. It’s a bit of a bondage-and-
discipline language, all told. You spend as much time satisfying the
compiler’s neuroses as you do writing good code.

A high-functioning-autistic object-pascal.

Also, it has been steadily losing ground to Java.

Martin

47

Rick DeNatale wrote:

Only in the sense that the source was available, most commonly on
microfiche, and primarily to help you read dumps so you could debug
your, and often IBM’s software.

The complete source of OS/360 and other 360 operating systems (including
compilers, etc.) was available on tape, and for free. I myself used it
to add several features to DOS/360’s PL/I compiler and to add a
job-accounting log to the JCL.

48

On 10/12/06, John W. Kennedy [email protected] wrote:

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

I don’t recall seeing an open
source PL/I compiler.

There have been some efforts to genericize the old (F) compiler (though
it was written in assembler), which IBM published freely back in the
60’s, when virtually all software was more or less open source,

Only in the sense that the source was available, most commonly on
microfiche, and primarily to help you read dumps so you could debug
your, and often IBM’s software.

–
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/