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From: stern@decserver.mc.ab.com (Ken Stern (ext 4157))
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Language Use
Keywords: C,Ada,Pascal,C++,Other?
Message-ID: <242@zeus.mc.ab.com>
Date: 25 Mar 91 20:57:49 GMT
References: <1150@ra.MsState.Edu> <MV6OD8B@math.fu-berlin.de> <12219@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <348@tslwat.UUCP>
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Reply-To: stern@decserver.mc.ab.com (Ken Stern (ext 4157))
Organization: Allen-Bradley Company; Motion Control Division
Lines: 38

In article <348@tslwat.UUCP> you write:
|> In article <12219@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> kemnitz@gaia.berkeley.edu
(Greg Kemnitz) writes:
|> >The thing that tends to determine which language will be used in
industry would
|> >surprise many people - it has very little to do with the intrinsic
quality of
|> >the language itself in most cases.  It is whether people are
available who know
|> >and are familiar with the language.
|>
|> Actually I don't think that people even go into it that much. Its
|> mostly a matter of market share -- if most other people are using
|> it then you use it too.
|>
|> People make these decisions on the basis of minimizing their risk
|> ("nobody ever   got  fired for   recommending  IBM") rather  than
|> maximizing their gain and the more other people that are using it
|> the more proven it is.
|>
|> Lou Kates, Teleride Sage Ltd., louk%tslwat@watmath.waterloo.edu


In fact, it is often even simpler than that.  Very often it simply boils
down to INERTIA.  If a company (or individual) has a significant amount of
code written in a language there will be a great deal of pressure to
protect that investment and continue to use the language (otherwise, why
would there still be so many people working in COBOL!?).  In fact, even
moving from one compiler to another for the same language can represent a
significant cost, and one that will be borne only for good reason.  Remember,
most companies produce software to make money, NOT to advance the state of
the art.  And educational institutions, if they are doing their job, should
be preparing their students for the real world.  So ... how many companies
are looking to hire people with Lisp experience versus the number looking
for people with a background in C?

The same or similar agruments help explain why C++ is so much more popular
than SmallTalk or Eiffel.