Xref: utzoo comp.sys.next:565 comp.society.futures:679
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!dan
From: dan@Apple.COM (Dan Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Fortran and Pascal
Message-ID: <20023@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 5 Nov 88 17:35:36 GMT
References: <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> <4391@ubc-cs.UUCP> <485@wucs1.wustl.edu> <3f6ce6e8.59b7@sauron.engin.umich.edu> <384@uceng.UC.EDU>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 25

In article <384@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:
>Individuals and corporations have $ billions sunk into Fortran and Cobol
>to sink additional $ billions into re-writing all of it, they might as
>well be tossing Molotov cocktails into your office.

That may be well and true, but individuals and corporations are also
always rewriting theirsoftware, adding features, deleting old features,
porting it to different machines, etc.  If the dictum "Plan to throw one
away" is followed every so often, then often many other benefits will be
seen by rewriting old Fortran and Cobol code in newer languages like C,
C++, or Modula-2, for example.

Just like ANSI C is providing a window to bring old C sources gradually
forward to function prototypes, individuals and corporations should see
the handwriting on the wall and begin rewriting their systems in a more
modern language.

Many universities today are no longer teaching Pascal, let alone
Fortran.  Stanford, for example, is crafting their new compiler to
compile C and C++.  Not even Pascal.

Interesting...

Dan Allen
Apple Computer