Re: How do you choose your programming language ?

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005, ik_5 wrote about "[hackers-il] How do you choose your 
programming language ?":
> So, why don't you use Pascal if only part of what I say is true (and
> all of it is true :P) ? First of all I think it's the name and the
> connection of the name you have for "Pascal". 

Your long story (that I clipped) describes something very very different
from what Pascal used to be. It reminds me of an old story, about some
developer in 1960 (or whatever) being asked what programming language he
thinks he'll be using in 2000, and he answered "I don't know which programming
language I will use, but I know its name will be Fortran". This joke
turned up to be surprisingly true, with the advent of "Fortran 90" and
"Fortran 95", which are similar to Fortran mostly in name. Similarly, the
Pascal that you describe is similar to the Pascal I used only in name.

Whenever someone tries to convince me to use "A new Fortran that has all
the features of C" or "A new Pascal that has all the features of C++", I
ask them - why should I use those "layer upon layer" languages, instead of
the one they are trying to emulate?

The reason I give these answers is not because I'm a C fanatic. I also
give a similar answer when someone tells me of a "C++ library that has
all the features of Perl" or a "C library that makes X programming as easy
as in Tcl/Tk" - why do I need those knockoffs, when I can use the originals?

And note that I have nothing "religious" against using Pascal:
In the late 80's, Turbo Pascal (on DOS) was my favorite language. I still
have in my cabinet at work 4 books: "Mastering Turbo Pascal 4.0", "Turbo
Pascal 5.5 OOP Guide", "Turbo Pascal the Complete Reference" and "Turbo
Pascal 6 the complete Reference", which as you can guess I never use any more.
The reason I liked Turbo Pascal was basically one: it allowed me to write
"graphical" programs, both using real graphics (I had just gotten my first
VGA card, and it was cool :)) and cursor (character-based graphics).
At that time, I couldn't do some of these things on the monochrome Unix
system I was using (I was already a good C programmer by that time - Pascal
was NOT my first language). But this was the only reason I liked Turbo
Pascal - I didn't like its syntax, I didn't like its limitations, and the
speedy compilation (2 seconds to compile a file, instead of 10 seconds in
C) was completely irrelevant even when I had a 16Mhz i386sx.

But as time passed, TP's only advantage became irrelevant. In 1990 I wrote
a C library that emulated Turbo-Pascal's character-graphics features, in 1991
we got (for real money!) a graphics library for our AT&T System V machine,
and in 1992 or 1993 we moved to Linux, and finally had X windows at home.
I never used Turbo Pascal since. And I do not miss it.

> Secondly The industry takes only languages that was giving to them
> after chowing and a lot of money investment on them (take Java and C#
> as two examples). 

Java "succeeded" (if you can call it that) because it had genuine differences
from existing languages. It wasn't the same as C++ with a different syntax,
or the same as Perl with a different syntax, and so on. It had something
genuinely different to offer. Of course, you might argue (like I do) if this
"different" necessarily means better.

C# is a new fad which is very similar to Java, and it will only succeed if
Microsoft uses its monopoly to somehow enforce it. If Microsoft had wanted,
Pascal would have become a standard by now...

> So how do you choose your programming language, and will you use FPC
> if it will not have the name Pascal inside, but will deliver you a
> faster code development and and more stable code, in less time then
> C#, Java, C, C++, VB and others ?

I try to learn as many languages as I can, and use for each job what is
better. In the last year I probably programmed in C, C++, Java, Tcl,
Perl, Awk, Zsh, Lisp, and probably a few others I forgot. Each language
is best for a specific kind of task. Still, somehow I doubt that if I
learned all the new bells-and-whistles of Pascal, it will add something
new to my arsenal of languages. For the same reason, there are other
languages I still haven't learn (though eventually I do plan to learn),
like PHP and Python - because the tasks they excel in are already "covered"
by other languages I know.


-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Monday, Nov 21 2005, 19 Heshvan 5766
nyh-TS7m/3hpY0sOpacJJkBjfT4kX+cae0hd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx             
|-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |The message above is just this
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |signature's way of propagating itself.


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/saFolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hackers-il/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    hackers-il-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/