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Yet you profess to think in BASIC, and FORTRAN is very, very similar to BASIC. I don't follow the metaphor about COBOL. Although it's syntax can be burdensome,

Yet you profess to think in BASIC, and FORTRAN is very, very similar to BASIC. I don't follow the metaphor about COBOL. Although it's syntax can be burdensome, the language is very efficient for the same reasons FORTRAN is: static typing, no dynamic memory allocation, efficient file I/O and the best compilers available. COBOL programs are not necessarily flexible, but the are fast and efficient. Also COBOL has correct "accounting math", something that almost no other language has as part of the core. In fact I can't think of another language specification that implements fixed-point math as part of the core: usually it's part of an external library and is cumbersome to use.

edw519 19y ago
I guess this is why I never post in language threads, we can go on and on all day. No one is right or wrong. Anyway, I'll try to address your comments. There are so many different versions of BASIC; it's possible we are visualizing very different versions. I am accustomed to using INFOBASIC dialects as in JBase or IBM'S U2 line. Everything numeric is represented as strings (integers) including dates, times, and decimals, so there is no "typing". As for efficiency, I used to benchmark like crazy, looking for the slickest algorithms and the best implementations of compilers and I/O routines. Not any more. Hardware has gotten so fast that I am more concerned with human time, not machine time. (Naturally, anything that runs 8 million times per second BETTER be fast.) These days, I generate most of my code, so the verbosity of COBOL (if I used it) shouldn't be an issue. But it is. I have to drop down to the source so often and I work on the code of others often enough, that I am most concerned with getting the whole job done with the LEAST code. This is where "juniors" fall down the fastest (IMO); there's too many places for things to go wrong. I know what you're thinking, if this is the case, why not learn even more advanced languages and frameworks with even less code. I dunno. I guess I've "settled into" what works best for me (as everyone should). Is it the best? Probably not. Am I open to better ways? Probably. But not today. Too busy.

edw519 19y ago

I guess this is why I never post in language threads, we can go on and on all day. No one is right or wrong. Anyway, I'll try to address your comments. There are so many different versions of BASIC; it's possible we are visualizing very different versions. I am accustomed to using INFOBASIC dialects as in JBase or IBM'S U2 line. Everything numeric is represented as strings (integers) including dates, times, and decimals, so there is no "typing". As for efficiency, I used to benchmark like crazy, looking for the slickest algorithms and the best implementations of compilers and I/O routines. Not any more. Hardware has gotten so fast that I am more concerned with human time, not machine time. (Naturally, anything that runs 8 million times per second BETTER be fast.) These days, I generate most of my code, so the verbosity of COBOL (if I used it) shouldn't be an issue. But it is. I have to drop down to the source so often and I work on the code of others often enough, that I am most concerned with getting the whole job done with the LEAST code. This is where "juniors" fall down the fastest (IMO); there's too many places for things to go wrong. I know what you're thinking, if this is the case, why not learn even more advanced languages and frameworks with even less code. I dunno. I guess I've "settled into" what works best for me (as everyone should). Is it the best? Probably not. Am I open to better ways? Probably. But not today. Too busy.