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That way lie frameworks such as Visual Studio, Visual Studio, Delphi, PowerBuilder, Oracle Developer, SQL Server Studio, various CASE tools, etc. All good produ

That way lie frameworks such as Visual Studio, Visual Studio, Delphi, PowerBuilder, Oracle Developer, SQL Server Studio, various CASE tools, etc. All good products that remind us that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. While often excellent, these frameworks usually disappear (or morph to new incompatible forms) within a decade leaving behind cast-off skeletons, the underlying code they generated, to be maintained for decades to come. Programmers seek security in a lingua franca, a common level of coding/specification that they are comfortable with and that they believe will remain useful as long as possible. The programming language level seems to be the sweet spot today. It is no accident that most frameworks generate code at the programming language level.

ilaksh 17y ago
Tools like PowerBuilder etc. are enhanced over time and evolve. The old applications built with those tools have to be either maintained with the old versions of the tools or converted/ported to the newer platforms. Oftentimes the underlying source code is using older libraries also and quite possibly outdated language features. I'm not sure I have ever really sought security in any particular programming language or version. Also, when you say "the programming language level" -- some languages evolve very quickly, and from one project to the next, even though it is basically the "same" language sometimes requires developers to learn very different ways of doing things. C (from procedural to object-oriented) or C# and its rapid changes are examples. Since we are starting with the machine hardware level there must be some route from the representation closest to the problem domain to that level. So we generate code for the next lowest level. A 4GL editor generates 3GL code and 3GL compiler generates 2GL code and a 2GL assembler generates 1GL (machine) code. I guess I don't feel like the 4GL (or call them 5GL if you want) tools have the capabilities we need to be able to throw out the 3GL, and I want to throw it out, or at least use it much, much less.

ilaksh 17y ago

Tools like PowerBuilder etc. are enhanced over time and evolve. The old applications built with those tools have to be either maintained with the old versions of the tools or converted/ported to the newer platforms. Oftentimes the underlying source code is using older libraries also and quite possibly outdated language features. I'm not sure I have ever really sought security in any particular programming language or version. Also, when you say "the programming language level" -- some languages evolve very quickly, and from one project to the next, even though it is basically the "same" language sometimes requires developers to learn very different ways of doing things. C (from procedural to object-oriented) or C# and its rapid changes are examples. Since we are starting with the machine hardware level there must be some route from the representation closest to the problem domain to that level. So we generate code for the next lowest level. A 4GL editor generates 3GL code and 3GL compiler generates 2GL code and a 2GL assembler generates 1GL (machine) code. I guess I don't feel like the 4GL (or call them 5GL if you want) tools have the capabilities we need to be able to throw out the 3GL, and I want to throw it out, or at least use it much, much less.