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C never really fell out of favor, though. And it's also the only available choice apart from assembler in many circumstances. But trying to revive interest in A

C never really fell out of favor, though. And it's also the only available choice apart from assembler in many circumstances. But trying to revive interest in Ada, D, Sather, Prolog, etc would be a lot more difficult.

pjmlp 5y ago
It was already out of favour in the early 80's, hence C.A.Hoare turing award speech against it in 1980, but then UNIX took over the world anyway, and the FOSS wave with GNU Manifesto helped to take it further. Apparently people don't have any issue hanging to an OS about the same age as COBOL.
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"Apparently people don't have any issue hanging to an OS about the same age as COBOL." Why should they? It works for many cases and has mountains of apps, tooling, libraries, hardware support and whatnot. It takes decades for the new OS/ecosystem to mature.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Same conclusion can be applied to COBOL applications. https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/visual-cobol/overview https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/visual-cobol/overv...
    - FpUser 5y ago
      Equating OS and its ecosystem to a single language is not very wise approach I think. In any ways you are obviously free to find fresh and shiny OS of your liking and use it.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        It surely is, UNIX and C are a symbiotic relationship, born out of each other, one in 1969, the other in 1972. I surely have, hence why I have gone back to Windows, where the focus is C++ and .NET, macOS where the focus is Objective-C and Swift (UNIX is there for historical reasons only), Android where the focus are Java/Kotlin and C++ (with Linux kernel being an implementation detail).
        xfer 5y ago
        UNIX is not a thing anymore, nobody writes UNIX code. People use various compatibility layer or straight up use kernel abis. And they are all improving over time. So no they are not all stuck in 80s. Even linux kernel devs are willing to add rust code in the mix. > Windows, where the focus is C++ and .NET, Microsoft is huge organization they have multiple focuses. You seem to be mixing the kernel/userland layer and making very weird argument against UNIX(that nobody uses). I am not familiar with COBOL is there any effort to improve COBOL?
        anthk 5y ago
        >UNIX is not a thing anymore, nobody writes UNIX code Please, get out of the GNU cult and check out what BSD's are doing in C.
        xfer 5y ago
        BSDs are not just sticking to what UNIX was(let's say v7?). They are also doing their own thing.
        FpUser 5y ago
        For me it is Windows desktop and Linux servers. So far I had no business case to develop for other mobile and somehow do not feel sorry for it as I am in no rush to bend over to things like approval from App stores etc.
asah 5y ago
Smalltalk never really got substantial adoption...
- igouy 5y ago
  "Ubiquitous Applications: Embedded Systems to Mainframe" (pdf) https://www.davethomas.net/papers/ubiquitous1995.pdf https://www.davethomas.net/papers/ubiquitous1995.pdf
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Thanks Java :(
  - StevePerkins 5y ago
    Smalltalk first appeared in 1972, and was a stable commercial product by 1980. Java didn't hit the market until over a decade and a half later. If you can't build adoption with a 15+ year head start, then it's not the next generation's fault. It just wasn't going to happen.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Except it was happening, that is why gang of four book uses C++ and Smalltalk on their examples. Had IBM kept selling Visual Age products instead of jumping into Java ship, history would have turned out much differently. Or if the Strongtalk guys hadn't return back to Sun and basically turn a Smalltalk VM into a Java one. JUnit was also born in Smalltalk for those not paying attention.
    - scroot 5y ago
      > stable commercial product by 1980 This is not true. Even the Smalltalk-80 Blue Book wasn't released until 1983. > If you can't build adoption with a 15+ year head start Historical context is important here. FOSS etc were not nearly as prevalent as they are now, and most major development environments had a price. The main Smalltalk players probably got it wrong by pricing out expensive licensing fees. But the head start does not matter when the next thing that comes along is released for free, which is what happened with Java.

pjmlp 5y ago

It was already out of favour in the early 80's, hence C.A.Hoare turing award speech against it in 1980, but then UNIX took over the world anyway, and the FOSS wave with GNU Manifesto helped to take it further. Apparently people don't have any issue hanging to an OS about the same age as COBOL.

FpUser 5y ago
>"Apparently people don't have any issue hanging to an OS about the same age as COBOL." Why should they? It works for many cases and has mountains of apps, tooling, libraries, hardware support and whatnot. It takes decades for the new OS/ecosystem to mature.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Same conclusion can be applied to COBOL applications. https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/visual-cobol/overview https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/visual-cobol/overv...
  - FpUser 5y ago
    Equating OS and its ecosystem to a single language is not very wise approach I think. In any ways you are obviously free to find fresh and shiny OS of your liking and use it.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      It surely is, UNIX and C are a symbiotic relationship, born out of each other, one in 1969, the other in 1972. I surely have, hence why I have gone back to Windows, where the focus is C++ and .NET, macOS where the focus is Objective-C and Swift (UNIX is there for historical reasons only), Android where the focus are Java/Kotlin and C++ (with Linux kernel being an implementation detail).
      - xfer 5y ago
        UNIX is not a thing anymore, nobody writes UNIX code. People use various compatibility layer or straight up use kernel abis. And they are all improving over time. So no they are not all stuck in 80s. Even linux kernel devs are willing to add rust code in the mix. > Windows, where the focus is C++ and .NET, Microsoft is huge organization they have multiple focuses. You seem to be mixing the kernel/userland layer and making very weird argument against UNIX(that nobody uses). I am not familiar with COBOL is there any effort to improve COBOL?
        anthk 5y ago
        >UNIX is not a thing anymore, nobody writes UNIX code Please, get out of the GNU cult and check out what BSD's are doing in C.
        xfer 5y ago
        BSDs are not just sticking to what UNIX was(let's say v7?). They are also doing their own thing.
      - FpUser 5y ago
        For me it is Windows desktop and Linux servers. So far I had no business case to develop for other mobile and somehow do not feel sorry for it as I am in no rush to bend over to things like approval from App stores etc.

asah 5y ago

Smalltalk never really got substantial adoption...

igouy 5y ago
"Ubiquitous Applications: Embedded Systems to Mainframe" (pdf) https://www.davethomas.net/papers/ubiquitous1995.pdf https://www.davethomas.net/papers/ubiquitous1995.pdf
pjmlp 5y ago
Thanks Java :(
- StevePerkins 5y ago
  Smalltalk first appeared in 1972, and was a stable commercial product by 1980. Java didn't hit the market until over a decade and a half later. If you can't build adoption with a 15+ year head start, then it's not the next generation's fault. It just wasn't going to happen.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Except it was happening, that is why gang of four book uses C++ and Smalltalk on their examples. Had IBM kept selling Visual Age products instead of jumping into Java ship, history would have turned out much differently. Or if the Strongtalk guys hadn't return back to Sun and basically turn a Smalltalk VM into a Java one. JUnit was also born in Smalltalk for those not paying attention.
  - scroot 5y ago
    > stable commercial product by 1980 This is not true. Even the Smalltalk-80 Blue Book wasn't released until 1983. > If you can't build adoption with a 15+ year head start Historical context is important here. FOSS etc were not nearly as prevalent as they are now, and most major development environments had a price. The main Smalltalk players probably got it wrong by pricing out expensive licensing fees. But the head start does not matter when the next thing that comes along is released for free, which is what happened with Java.