computerworld.com: C Programming, one of The top 10 dead (or dying)computer skills

[Junmin H.]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9020942

Just read this article, how do you guys think?
I just started to learn C, so I don't know what I should do now.

 

[Eric Sosman]

Junmin H. wrote On 09/18/07 12:59,:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9020942

Just read this article, how do you guys think?
I just started to learn C, so I don't know what I should do now.

You should help us recreate last June's thread on
this topic, article by article. Then wait a few months
and do it again, and again, and yet again ...

Alternatively, go to groups.google.com and look in
the archives of this newsgroup for a thread with the
subject "C a dying skill?"

 

[Ivar Rosquist]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9020942

Just read this article, how do you guys think?

We think very clearly

I just started to learn C, so I don't know what I should do now.

Well, I remember during the 90s, in the middle of the .com boom,
that not only C was supposed to be dead, but that soon programmers would
be unnecessary, on the grounds that most things either could be done by
anyone, thanks to super-duper WIMP environments (and extensions thereof)
and the remaining tasks would be taken over by specialized, smart systems.

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[John Smith]

Junmin H. wrote On 09/18/07 12:59,:



You should help us recreate last June's thread on
this topic, article by article. Then wait a few months
and do it again, and again, and yet again ...

Alternatively, go to groups.google.com and look in
the archives of this newsgroup for a thread with the
subject "C a dying skill?"

And, in particular, read Jack Klein's post in this thread.

JS

 

[Junmin H.]

Junmin H. wrote On 09/18/07 12:59,:

You should help us recreate last June's thread on
this topic, article by article. Then wait a few months and do it again,
and again, and yet again ...

Alternatively, go to groups.google.com and look in
the archives of this newsgroup for a thread with the subject "C a dying
skill?"

Haha, thank you! I didn't know that it was discussed before.

;-(

 

[user923005]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9020942

Just read this article, how do you guys think?
I just started to learn C, so I don't know what I should do now.

Programming languages don't go obsolete. Not even COBOL, a 50 year
old language:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1816447,00.asp

As long as there are billions of lines of code written in a
programming language and new lines being written, the language is not
going to go away.

 

[Tor Rustad]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9020942

Just read this article, how do you guys think?
I just started to learn C, so I don't know what I should do now.

#1 on that list is COBOL.

Before year 2000, I wrote scanner to detect Y2K bugs on a major system.
Source for multiple languages needed to be scanned, but the main bulk of
source was written in COBOL.

I would hardly have received the contract, unless prior knowledge of
COBOL, including working on a compiler for it.

The system survived Y2K and is still very much alive. I don't think
re-writing the COBOL, is ever gonna be in their roadmap.


The point is, not everything is a web front-end.

 

[pete]

Programming languages don't go obsolete. Not even COBOL, a 50 year
old language:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1816447,00.asp

The sight of COBOL students
carrying their stacks of punch cards in the 1970's,
had me convinced that computer science itself, was just a fad.

 

[user923005]

The sight of COBOL students
carrying their stacks of punch cards in the 1970's,
had me convinced that computer science itself, was just a fad.

I worked on Fortran and PL/1 programs using cards in 1976-1977 on an
IBM 360.
One of the Fortran IV programs had 40,000 card images. Keep in mind
that there was not a single comment in the file and all variable names
were two letters or less. How would you like to maintain a thing like
that?

I thought drum card readers were pretty cool, util we got the beta of
TSO. Wow!! We could actually see a line of the file on the CRT!!!
(TSO was basically the old dos Edlin program with the ability to
submit jobs at that time). When they bought the second meg of core,
it cost 10 million dollars, IIRC. The disk drives were about the size
of a washing machine and held 45 MB.

We've come a fair way since then.