Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!yale!quasi-eli!cs.yale.edu!bloom-debbie From: bloom-debbie@cs.yale.edu (Debbie Bloom) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: sys & lang standardization? Message-ID: <27318@cs.yale.edu> Date: 16 Nov 90 16:32:16 GMT References: Sender: news@cs.yale.edu Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158 Lines: 30 Nntp-Posting-Host: zoo-gw.cs.yale.edu Originator: bloom@suned.CS.Yale.Edu In article hp0p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Hokkun Pang) writes: >I have browsed thru all net.comp.* bboards, this seems more appropriate. >--- > >Will we ever get to the stage that operating system and programming language >are well stablelized(am I dreaming?). It seems to me that every month or so, >there's a new (or major upgrade to an existing) operating system or programming >language. So much energy are wasted (can I say this?) in learning new features >and rewiting old codes. Still an undergrad, I have used the following languages >already: Ada, Assembly, Basic, C, Cobol, Comal, Forth, Fortran, ML, Lisp, ML, >Pascal, Prolog, Scheme. And all of them are still widely used. How many more >do I need to learn? Do we know enough to know which direction(s) to go yet? >How long do we need to wait? > >PS, don't flame me, I'm just an undergrad. Off the top of my head, I can think of two main reasons why there are so many languages out there (still being used and being dreamed up anew): 1. There is a great deal of code out there written in old languages (e.g., Cobol, Fortran) that would take an incredible amount of time to rewrite in a new language. People don't want to spend this time (it is not cost-efficient in many areas), so the old code gets reused and updated in the old language. 2. Different languages exist for different uses. So long as computers are used for so many widespread applications, we will need languages geared toward those applications. -Debbie