| Pete Dashwood 2007-03-14, 6:55 pm |
|
"Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote in message
news:1173850060.361836.129160@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On Mar 14, 2:59 pm, "Pete Dashwood"
> <dashw...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
> Anders Hejlsberg perhaps.
Yes, of course. Thanks for the correction, Richard. (I was taken by the
current and missed the mountain... :-))
>
> Compas Pascal, which became Turbo Pascal, and with Apple's objects
> became Delphi.
>
> Where are these today ?
>
Yes, a fair question...
Pascal certainly has credentials as a teaching language but it is hard to
assess the extent of the commercial user base.
Quick search on GOOGLE gave the following:
Delphi Pascal -> around 2,000,000 hits
COBOL -> around 10,000,000 hits
C# -> around 65,000,000 hits
(This could mean absolutely nothing, of course, but there are no hard
statistics I can find that are credible and unbiased regarding the user base
for any of the above.)
I suspect the problem was not with the intrinsic quality of Pascal or Delphi
as languages (I know from nodding acquaintance with both, that they are at
least as good as other languages, and they support OO and Visual
programming), but rather from the fact that Borland was unable to really
market them.
Allusion is made to both of these at the start of the interview. As
Hejlsberg was behind these, and C#, it seems he has done much better since
moving to MicroSoft... :-)
From my own involvement in C# I know that MS are pushing it quite hard and
making it very easy for people to acquire, learn and use it. They are
targeting amateur programmers and kids who are interested, as well as
professionals.
It was particularly interesting to me to see in this interview that C# is
NOT perceived internally (at least not by the two people in the interview)
as the wonder language du jour you could be forgiven for thinking it is from
MS marketing. Hejlsberg sees it as a good framework for functional
programming and implementing Lamba expressions and expression trees, rather
than as a finished product.
For my own part, I am now gaining facility with it and I am satisfied it is
a great replacement for COBOL and a very useful language in its own right. I
have passed the point where, when new application requirements are raised,
I reach for COBOL... These days it is C# and DotNET almost exclusively for
any new development. As I mentioned elsewhere, I think the IDE (Visual
Studio 2005) had much to do with this. It is just quicker, easier, and less
error prone than writing COBOL was.
Pete.
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