5 ms·

Pascal, perl, ASP, every ML, Fortran, Cobol, Eiffel, Modula, all "4GL" languages.

by vesak 8y ago

kamaal 8y ago
None of them have faded. Cobol? Seriously, there are probably more Cobol programmers than there are Python programmers. And C? Most of the world runs on C, and its irreplaceable language in a non desktop computer. And you will be surprised how much Perl code is written everyday. The root comment is talking about the fad of the year, the kind of a language web devs use as flavor of the year. The current ones are Javascript frameworks. In this case the 'fade' is just the web framework, that probably has less mind share and open source dev contributions.
- vesak 8y ago
  Yeah, when I wrote the comment, I kinda guessed that people would point out the zombie-like state of living for these languages. That's only barely being alive, though, and very much faded. (I did have C in there but edited it out. I don't think that's a dead language yet.)
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    But isn't Lisp almost as zombie-like as Perl or COBOL? (4GL I'll probably give you...)
    - vesak 8y ago
      Well, yes :) And 4GL languages are actively being used to create new business, so who knows what's dead and what's not. Perhaps the whole programming field is just a bunch of undead things. Sometimes a bunch of living things stumble upon the field, but they're soon infected...
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - jhomedall 8y ago
      There are several implementations of Common Lisp that are still being actively developed. Because Common Lisp is so easily extended, the ossification of the standard is actually a good thing. The stability of the standard means that code written 30 years ago will still work today. Feature updates aren't required, because any desired feature can be implemented in macros and imported as a library.
oblio 8y ago
If by ASP you mean classic Visual Basic, I'll grant you that. And Pascal. But ML, Eiffel and Modula were never mainstream. And Perl, Fortran, Cobol probably still have more programmers out there than Common Lisp has :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Modula-2 had a good developer community in Amiga and MS-DOS systems, at least across a few European countries.
- deepaksurti 8y ago
  And the fewer CL programmers will run circles around P, F, C programmers :-)
  - jabl 8y ago
    So, why don't they? ;) Why is viaweb and ITA trotted out decade after decade? If CL is so awesome why isn't the world filled with awesome stuff implemented in CL? (To be clear, IMHO it's a huge shame that more powerful languages like CL or Haskell aren't more popular)
    - nickpsecurity 8y ago
      Because they won't put in the effort to just pull up and post the customer lists of companies selling LISP commercially. ;) http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html https://franz.com/success/ https://franz.com/success/ The companies that use LISP don't talk about it much. I'm not saying secret weapon or anything either. I'm saying they seem to be among the set that just identifies something good for the business, buys/builds it, and solves business problems. They don't write articles about their programming language. What I will say is the small number of case studies on those two companies have much more interesting software than what's advertised for many stacks. The kinds of things people use it for corroborates the LISP advocates' claim it's a favorite for hardest, constantly-changing problems. It's more remarkable with Allegro since they charge royalties on top of the licensing with customers still buying their stuff.
pjmlp 8y ago
Adding a few more to the list, Algol, PL/I, PL/S, NEWP, BLISS, Mesa, PL/8, xBASE, RPG, PL/M, NewtonScript, Modula-2+, Modula-3, Component Pascal, Oberon, Oberon-2, Active Oberon, Zonnon, StarLisp, StarC, Concurrent Pascal, Concurrent C, Forth
segmondy 8y ago
Perl, ML, Fortran, Cobol has not faded. You might not like them, you might not use them. But there are tons of them out there and being used in the real world and production systems.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I think it's fair to say those languages have "faded" I would also say Python 2 has "faded" or started to. Faded doesn't mean it isn't used anymore. It mean it's retreated into a niche, and is no longer on the short list for new development, and no longer interesting to most developers.
  - oblio 8y ago
    Your average Python 2 programmers “becomes” a Python 3 programmers after 8 hours of practice. I find your argument invalid :) Also, Python 2 sees and will probably see more production use than Lisp for at least a few more years :)
venuur 8y ago
Fortran is still going strong with Fortran 2008. And even better, it’s backwards compatible still with Fortran 77.
- reikonomusha 8y ago
  Critically, though, it's not the same Fortran. Fortran 2008 is VERY different from FORTRAN 77.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - venuur 8y ago
    Very good point! I find the structure of modern Fortran very clear (although somewhat verbose compared to same python).
    - TheRealKing 8y ago
      check out the new impressive built-in parallel features in Fortran 2018 here: https://goo.gl/ZbH4t7 https://goo.gl/ZbH4t7 GFortran 8.1 has already implemented the majority of it, and Intel is already adding the new features to their new Intel Fortran 2019. I don't know of any other mainstream language at the moment, that has native shared- and distributed-memory parallelism capabilities based on one-sided communications without recourse to the complex ugly out-of-language MPI library calls.

Pascal, perl, ASP, every ML, Fortran, Cobol, Eiffel, Modula, all "4GL" languages.

by vesak 8y ago

Pascal, perl, ASP, every ML, Fortran, Cobol, Eiffel, Modula, all "4GL" languages.

None of them have faded. Cobol? Seriously, there are probably more Cobol programmers than there are Python programmers. And C? Most of the world runs on C, and its irreplaceable language in a non desktop computer. And you will be surprised how much Perl code is written everyday. The root comment is talking about the fad of the year, the kind of a language web devs use as flavor of the year. The current ones are Javascript frameworks. In this case the 'fade' is just the web framework, that probably has less mind share and open source dev contributions.

vesak 8y ago
Yeah, when I wrote the comment, I kinda guessed that people would point out the zombie-like state of living for these languages. That's only barely being alive, though, and very much faded. (I did have C in there but edited it out. I don't think that's a dead language yet.)
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  But isn't Lisp almost as zombie-like as Perl or COBOL? (4GL I'll probably give you...)
  - vesak 8y ago
    Well, yes :) And 4GL languages are actively being used to create new business, so who knows what's dead and what's not. Perhaps the whole programming field is just a bunch of undead things. Sometimes a bunch of living things stumble upon the field, but they're soon infected...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhomedall 8y ago
    There are several implementations of Common Lisp that are still being actively developed. Because Common Lisp is so easily extended, the ossification of the standard is actually a good thing. The stability of the standard means that code written 30 years ago will still work today. Feature updates aren't required, because any desired feature can be implemented in macros and imported as a library.

oblio 8y ago

If by ASP you mean classic Visual Basic, I'll grant you that. And Pascal. But ML, Eiffel and Modula were never mainstream. And Perl, Fortran, Cobol probably still have more programmers out there than Common Lisp has :)

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 8y ago
Modula-2 had a good developer community in Amiga and MS-DOS systems, at least across a few European countries.
deepaksurti 8y ago
And the fewer CL programmers will run circles around P, F, C programmers :-)
- jabl 8y ago
  So, why don't they? ;) Why is viaweb and ITA trotted out decade after decade? If CL is so awesome why isn't the world filled with awesome stuff implemented in CL? (To be clear, IMHO it's a huge shame that more powerful languages like CL or Haskell aren't more popular)
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    Because they won't put in the effort to just pull up and post the customer lists of companies selling LISP commercially. ;) http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html https://franz.com/success/ https://franz.com/success/ The companies that use LISP don't talk about it much. I'm not saying secret weapon or anything either. I'm saying they seem to be among the set that just identifies something good for the business, buys/builds it, and solves business problems. They don't write articles about their programming language. What I will say is the small number of case studies on those two companies have much more interesting software than what's advertised for many stacks. The kinds of things people use it for corroborates the LISP advocates' claim it's a favorite for hardest, constantly-changing problems. It's more remarkable with Allegro since they charge royalties on top of the licensing with customers still buying their stuff.

pjmlp 8y ago

Adding a few more to the list, Algol, PL/I, PL/S, NEWP, BLISS, Mesa, PL/8, xBASE, RPG, PL/M, NewtonScript, Modula-2+, Modula-3, Component Pascal, Oberon, Oberon-2, Active Oberon, Zonnon, StarLisp, StarC, Concurrent Pascal, Concurrent C, Forth

segmondy 8y ago

Perl, ML, Fortran, Cobol has not faded. You might not like them, you might not use them. But there are tons of them out there and being used in the real world and production systems.

ams6110 8y ago
I think it's fair to say those languages have "faded" I would also say Python 2 has "faded" or started to. Faded doesn't mean it isn't used anymore. It mean it's retreated into a niche, and is no longer on the short list for new development, and no longer interesting to most developers.
- oblio 8y ago
  Your average Python 2 programmers “becomes” a Python 3 programmers after 8 hours of practice. I find your argument invalid :) Also, Python 2 sees and will probably see more production use than Lisp for at least a few more years :)

venuur 8y ago

Fortran is still going strong with Fortran 2008. And even better, it’s backwards compatible still with Fortran 77.

reikonomusha 8y ago
Critically, though, it's not the same Fortran. Fortran 2008 is VERY different from FORTRAN 77.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- venuur 8y ago
  Very good point! I find the structure of modern Fortran very clear (although somewhat verbose compared to same python).
  - TheRealKing 8y ago
    check out the new impressive built-in parallel features in Fortran 2018 here: https://goo.gl/ZbH4t7 https://goo.gl/ZbH4t7 GFortran 8.1 has already implemented the majority of it, and Intel is already adding the new features to their new Intel Fortran 2019. I don't know of any other mainstream language at the moment, that has native shared- and distributed-memory parallelism capabilities based on one-sided communications without recourse to the complex ugly out-of-language MPI library calls.