Re: The joy of FORTRAN

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 23:36:11 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
 

There's always a psychology in the computer world that immediately
embraces the "Newest/Greatest Thing"
whether it's actually good/improved or not. Shit, I remember when 'C'
was in that category ... that one DID hang on

 
That's something that's puzzled me all of my life and on a wider scale
than computer languages. Why does Religion X survive while Religion Y,
which is equally as plausible/implausible become an also ran? Why does C
hand on while C++ never quite lived up to its promises? Why is Pike
completely off the map? It isn't that bad of a C-like language?
 
Some things live the AC vs. DC wars have valid technological answers.
Others like the i86 architecture seem more like accidents at a point in
time.
 

I think a new language has to have SOMETHING significantly better than it’s
predecessors to catch on. Otherwise why bother? I know nothing about Rust,
but isn’t it supposed to fix C’s buffer overflow problem. X86 architecture
has been an accident since the 8080. It’s a prime example of extending
something way beyond its usefulness. I saw something about Intel defining a
new ISA which is x86 with all the weird corners filed off.

--
Pete