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We've had this question asked before I believe but it does no harm in asking it again and again. After all, opinions change as does the software ecosystem. Quincy Larson of FreeCodeCamp.com asked this question via Medium: What programming language should you learn first? He thinks JavaScript is the way to go and his arguments are cogent and well thought out. However, I am somewhat hesitant to suggest someone learn to code in JavaScript first. My first programming language (in 1981!) was Fortran on a Control Data mainframe. The interactive environment the OS provided was pretty simple and the language provided few opportunities to hang yourself. JavaScript, by comparison, while it may not have those evil pointers of C/C++, it offers functional features and plenty of rope to hang oneself.
So, opinions please.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday November 04 2016, @07:38PM
COBOL? Fortran? But these are dead languages, like Latin! In a curriculum development committee meeting it was once pointed out that this is the great advantage of computer technology: we can now create dead languages in mere decades, instead of having to wait multiple millennia! And what ever happened to Pascal?
(Score: 5, Informative) by mendax on Friday November 04 2016, @08:08PM
Uh.... COBOL and FORTRAN are very much alive. The world's banks and governments couldn't function without COBOL. And scientific applications are generally written in FORTRAN. Both languages are today object-oriented and continue to evolve, and new applications are written in these languages.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Friday November 04 2016, @08:14PM
I'm guessing aristarchus is still upset about Latin being proclaimed dead.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday November 04 2016, @10:20PM
No, it is not so much the Latin, it is what passes for Greek these days! Oh, and Javascript.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Friday November 04 2016, @10:24PM
Ah, but Greek is spoken today by the Greeks. The modern language is surprisingly similar to the ancient one, whereas Latin is truly and thankfully dead, having morphed into many other languages that are much easier to learn and speak than Latin! Visual Basic is the Greek of the programming language world, having morphed out of an ancient programming tongue. JavaScript is more like French, a bizarre bastardization of C.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @10:43PM
Javascipt == French? My God, what does that make English???
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @11:30PM
According to a fortune I saw today, English is the language in which "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing. And in which we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.
(Score: 4, Informative) by kazzie on Saturday November 05 2016, @08:05AM
English is the language in which ... we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.
Not in England you don't: You go to a parkway to catch a train [wikipedia.org]!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 05 2016, @12:28AM
Brainfuck.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Friday November 04 2016, @11:01PM
No, it is not so much the Latin, it is what passes for Greek these days!
But Latin is Greek to me; [wikipedia.org] thus a JNCF's ignornance is an aristachus's burden, and it is so much the Latin! Your move, Detective [nocookie.net].
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @08:34PM
I was at a local financial company with a relative and I walked past an area where the average age had to be in the 50s, markedly older than the rest of the office. I asked one of the gentlemen what they did and he replied, "It depends on how much you know about COBOL." One interesting thing to note is that they had one of the only "traditional" office spaces rather than the open floor plan or cubicle setup.
(Score: 5, Funny) by JNCF on Friday November 04 2016, @08:13PM
Real real men program in COBOL inside of JavaScript comments: [npmjs.com]
// Dependencies
var Cobol = require("cobol");
// Execute some COBOL snippets
Cobol(function () { /*
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
DATA DIVISION.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
PROGRAM-BEGIN.
DISPLAY "Hello world".
PROGRAM-DONE.
STOP RUN.
*/ }, function (err, data) {
console.log(err || data);
});
// => "Hello World"
Much like wrapping a decrepit old dying man in the flesh of a young mentally disabled child, the end product may seem fresh and new from a distance to the blind. But to be the one stretching the hide around -- to understand what you're doing, and continue? That takes grit.
(Score: 5, Touché) by dyingtolive on Friday November 04 2016, @08:26PM
Sadly there is no "-1 Literal glimpse into unknowable horror" mod.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Subsentient on Friday November 04 2016, @10:58PM
I like you.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Friday November 04 2016, @11:19PM
Thanks! I like you too. I enjoy most of your comments that I read, and I was using a version of your init system on a virtual machine for a while. I don't know if you remember that time we flamed each other over my half-trollsy anti-vaccination position (the CIA does have a history of using vaccination programs to steal DNA), but I'm glad it hasn't fostered any long term negative associations with my username.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05 2016, @05:34AM
That's right but don't forget that
If you gaze long into COBOL, COBOL also gazes into you...
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday November 05 2016, @06:15AM
Once you've seen the slaughterhouse that is the original code base, doing this isn't so bad. Mix in periodic shots of Jack, and every day is easy.