Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

10 Most(ly dead) Influential Programming Languages

posted by Fnord666 on Friday March 27 2020, @06:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the its-not-dead-its-just-resting dept.

DannyB writes:

10 Most(ly dead) Influential Programming Languages:

The other day I read 20 most significant programming languages in history, a "preposterous table I just made up." He certainly got preposterous right: he lists Go as "most significant" but not ALGOL, Smalltalk, or ML. He also leaves off Pascal because it's "mostly dead". Preposterous! That defeats the whole point of what "significant in history" means.

So let's talk about some "mostly dead" languages and why they matter so much.

Disclaimer: Yeah not all of these are dead and not all of these are forgotten. Like most people have heard of Smalltalk, right? Also there's probably like a billion mistakes in this, because when you're doing a survey of 60 years of computing history you're gonna get some things wrong. Feel free to yell at me if you see anything!

Disclaimer 2: Yeah I know some of these are "first to invent" and others are "first to popularize". History is complicated!

<no-sarcasm>
If there were one perfect language we would all be using it already.
</no-sarcasm>

Recently:
(2020-03-11) Top 7 Dying Programming Languages to Avoid Studying in 2019-2020

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
10 Most(ly dead) Influential Programming Languages | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 39 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Friday March 27 2020, @08:56PM (1 child)

    by RamiK (1813) on Friday March 27 2020, @08:56PM (#976452)

    Honestly most language theorists have no clue what makes a language good. And who can blame them when most developers will opt to use the tool they're most familiar with rather than the tool most appropriate to do the job?

    --
    compiling...
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @09:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @09:48PM (#976475)

    You are right, but...
    the best tool is usually the one you know inside-out.
    The ramp-up time and potential unknown traps of a language that is new to you usually outweigh any theoretical benefit of adopting a new language along with its supporting ecosystem.
    I am assuming the language you already know is a general purpose language: probably not the best at anything, but also not the worst either.