Future reuse of code

[Joona I Palaste]

Buster Copley <[email protected]> scribbled the following

Hey, be careful! Not everyone's an anglophone. Other than that,
very well said.

I, for one, learned BASIC before I learned English. I remember being
pleased that "if... then" meant the same thing as English as it did in
BASIC.

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"As we all know, the hardware for the PC is great, but the software sucks."
- Petro Tyschtschenko

 

[Joona I Palaste]

LX-i <[email protected]> scribbled the following

James Cameron wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You're a great filmmaker - why are you switching to programming?

Is this the same James Cameron who created the pptpclient SourceForge
project?

 

[Jim Morcombe]

James

How much time will be spect maintaining the code?

If the code willbe stable and not maintained too often, then development
time will be more important than maintenance time.

However, if it will be maintained quite frequently and you don't mind a
longer development time, just go with "C" or Cobol, depending on the type of
application.

If development cost is critical, then just choose any development language
that is not undergoing a lot of chnge at the moment. Probably one that you
have skills to use already.

Jim

 

[Peter E.C. Dashwood]

Now don't shilly shally - your new 'audience' might find it enlightening.
"Design systems around a particular language" and "One Language Wonder".

Spell it out simply as percentages :-

- Languages you use on a daily basis - x%
- Languages & Tools you use to produce your Components on a daily basis - x%

Jimmy

Sorry Jimmy,

I'd like to respond but I have no idea what you are talking about.

Percentages based on what I do personally are of no consequence. Percentages
based on the last commercial installation I managed are of little
consequence either. Today's percentages could vary wildly tomorrow, and
there is no guarantee that a percentage of development true today will
continue to be true indefinitely.

I can say that the results from both above would involve SQL Server, VB,
Perl, Java and COBOL. But so what?

I don't see any "shilly-shally" in my post.

My point was that it is wrong (today) to design systems around the
capabilities of a given procedural language (irrespective of what that
language is...). As for "One Language wonder"... well, that is just an
extension of the same idea. In the past it was possible to get by on one
language. It isn't anymore, yet there are still people who, rather than
simply expand their skill set, cling frantically to the notion that THEIR
language is wonderful and can do ANYTHING better than any other language.
(hence, "One Language Wonder"...)

We SHOULD be designing systems based on Business Functionality, rather than
computer programming languages.

I contend that Component Based Development is a really good way to do this,
and it happens to be the best way to ensure re-use of code (in my opinion)
which is what the topic is about.

Maybe you read more into it than I intended or maybe I just don't understand
what you are driving at.

Pete.

 

[LX-i]

LX-i <[email protected]> scribbled the following



Is this the same James Cameron who created the pptpclient SourceForge
project?

I have no idea.


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[Howard Brazee]

I, for one, learned BASIC before I learned English. I remember being
pleased that "if... then" meant the same thing as English as it did in
BASIC.

I'm glad you shared that. I have wondered how often this is true.

I have heard of pilots who know how to speak all the English that they need to
talk to Air Traffic Controllers and other aspects of their job (every
international airport except for Montreal's speaks English) - but don't know
English hardly at all for non-business purposes.

 

[Aleksi Kallio]

I, for one, learned BASIC before I learned English. I remember being

I'm glad you shared that. I have wondered how often this is true.

Sounds familiar. When we started to learn English at school we had
competitions where you had to come up with word that begins with the
letter that the previous word ended with. My team won always because I
knew so many BASIC commands and C64 related terms - but I had no idea
what was the meaning of those words outside the context of C64.

 

[Bob Wolfe]

Well, C will be around in 15 years in the same sense that COBOL is
still with us today. But probably something that should be pointed
out is that there are very few C compilers out there that don't also
support C++. There are very few if any universities teaching computer
science that teach C but not C++. So you could easily make a
strategic decision between C and C++ according to what makes sense for
you today, and certainly both will still exist in some way shape or
form 15 years from now.

That said, Java certainly has enough momentum today to suggest it will
probably exist in 15 years. Though whether or not it will supplant
C++ or other alternatives is too hard to see. The problem with Java
is that if it fails to continue to gain momentum, it might very
quickly be relegated to that of a niche market. I won't make a call
as to which way I think it will go, but I think its fair to say that
both (dominance over C++, or relegation to a niche) are possible. I
think its very unlikely that it will completely disappear in 15 years.

COBOL and Pascal (the other groups you crossposted this message to)
will decrease in usage over time, not increase. There is absolutely
no new serious development being done in either language.

Paul:

I'm curious......can you provide me with a reference to the source of
the above comment?

Did you read that in a magazine article or was it a reference from a
Gartner Group study?

I am indeed curious.

In 15
years, Pascal will probably be completely dead, and the COBOL
community will be reduced even from the size of today's community
(human mortality alone will guarantee this.)

Bob Wolfe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When replying by e-mail, make sure that you correct the e-mail address.
Check out The Flexus COBOL Page at http://www.flexus.com

 

[Danny Maijer]

Hi I'm developing a program and the client is worried about future
reuse of the code. Say 5, 10, 15 years down the road.

How about even 20 years down the road ? One of my former colleagues had a
crush on date handling. Up to now I am still using his code (with no changes
made ever since) in new applications and when maintaining other apps. His
coding even supports the gregorian date change in 1560......I never needed
that however.

That code was written for a NCR IMOS system. In plain ANSII cobol. As you
will read in the other replies on this thread there are some standards such
piece of code needs to meet. Like no user interface (only parameter
handling) and plain standard coding (no proprietry routines should be used).

I have put lots of this kind of routines in Fujitsu Cobol DLL's which makes
them accessable for other languages too....To be frankly honest, I never
looked at the source code of these routines. I dont need to, they work !
(Thanks to Robert Veldwijk).

Regards, Danny.

BTW, When I started programming in COBOL I was warned to upgrade my skills
to other languages (which I did) because COBOL would be dead and gone within
5 years of that moment. That was 1984......The main part of my business is
still COBOL today

 

[docdwarf]

[snip]

BTW, When I started programming in COBOL I was warned to upgrade my skills
to other languages (which I did) because COBOL would be dead and gone within
5 years of that moment. That was 1984......The main part of my business is
still COBOL today

Oh, I *cannot* resist... I don't remember where I first read it or to whom
I should attribute it but the statement was something along the lines of
'I was told to learn new stuff because COBOL was a dying language and
would soon be replaced. The next week I was told that Neil Armstrong had
walked on the moon.'

DD

 

[Peter E.C. Dashwood]

not all programming is Business




You're aware, this is there some 10 (?) years?
Remember SOM, OpenDoc, OS400 to just cite IBM?
Most were language-independent.
All but one gone.
Make it better next time?
Sure!
XML!
(hah!)

Wolfgang

 

[Peter E.C. Dashwood]

Ignore the other post that was sent accidentally...

Comments below.

not all programming is Business

No it isn't. But for the purpose of this discussion we were looking at a
Business Application. Read the whole thread.

You're aware, this is there some 10 (?) years?
Remember SOM, OpenDoc, OS400 to just cite IBM?
Most were language-independent.
All but one gone.
Make it better next time?

I see no connection with anything you mentioned and component (ActiveX or
Java Bean) technology.

What is your point?

Sure!
XML!
(hah!)

XML is an important part of the future of IT.

Pete.

 

[RH]

That said, Java certainly has enough momentum today to suggest it will
probably exist in 15 years. Though whether or not it will supplant
C++ or other alternatives is too hard to see.

Java won't supplant C++ or other languages that create very fast, linkable
executables; even with JIT compilers and native compilers. C# is Java's
closest competition.

The problem with Java
is that if it fails to continue to gain momentum, it might very
quickly be relegated to that of a niche market. I think its very unlikely

that it will completely disappear in 15 years.

This is probably true, considering it's Open Source architecture and its
backing by some very major players (ex: Oracle).

COBOL and Pascal (the other groups you crossposted this message to)
will decrease in usage over time, not increase. There is absolutely
no new serious development being done in either language. In 15
years, Pascal will probably be completely dead,

This isn't quite true. Delphi is OO Pascal, and a very nice language I
might add (the software engineer also wrote the C# language).

It's taking a back seat to the more popular web-services oriented languages
but it's still an excellent alternative to C++ and/or Visual Basic. And it
runs on Linux.

 

[Marco van de Voort]

This isn't quite true. Delphi is OO Pascal, and a very nice language I
might add (the software engineer also wrote the C# language).

It's taking a back seat to the more popular web-services oriented languages
but it's still an excellent alternative to C++ and/or Visual Basic. And it
runs on Linux.

Use the development version of www.freepascal.org, and you have a fair
chance of compiling non-GUI Delphi code to PPC systems. (Mac OS <any> not
ready yet. AIX<->SYSV abi problems)

 

[jce]

Nope. Disagree strongly. The days of procedural code and the necessity to
maintain it are nearly over. It is very wrong NOW to design systems around a
particular language.
The days of the "Waterfall" and "One Language Wonder" system development
are, thankfully, in rapid decline.

This is certainly an interesting perspective. Java has taken the mantra of
write once run-anywhere but I always wondered what made it so special back
in the day- and it wasn't long after that people decided that they could
utilize just the JVM (Net Rexx for example).

However Java seems to fall into that "One Language Wonder" paradigm...when
you say web service people reach for their Java/J2EE references. They don't
view COBOL or PL/I, VB or anything else being viable in that arena. I was
under the impression that web services were the first step in abstracting
away from a language or implementation but it seems that isn't happening as
fast as I would have supposed.

JCE

 

[jce]

Here is a classic gotcha from Software Development magazine that I consider
appropriate enough to consider sharing.. you are fortunate enough to have a
disclaimer on the online version...those of us who read this back then (and
are gullible) actually believed it for a moment

http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=819/sdm0204f/

You may have to register but you can make up a name...you could sign up for
the free magazine (maybe not in nz) but it's a pretty interesting magazine
that doesn't take long to flip through.

Here's the intro:
Once every decade or so, a technology comes along that changes the software
landscape, becoming an indispensable part of the developer's life. Although
just about every new software concept touts itself as something that will
"change the way we work," only a handful truly possess such far-reaching
consequences. One key advance in our field was object-oriented programming.
Another is the increasing level of abstraction in the tools that developers
use. What shape might the next advance take?

The R&D folks at Nihil Software believe they have the answer. Their
innovation is called Natural Language Design (NLD), an approach that enables
rapid construction of complex software systems using natural (spoken or
written) language to specify the program. Using this approach, and the
accompanying tools that Nihil has provided as reference implementations, you
can verbally describe the system you want to build and literally see it
constructed as you speak. That's right, you heard me, no programming.
Skeptical? Read on.

John (jce)

 

[Peter E.C. Dashwood]

around

This is certainly an interesting perspective. Java has taken the mantra of
write once run-anywhere but I always wondered what made it so special back
in the day- and it wasn't long after that people decided that they could
utilize just the JVM (Net Rexx for example).

However Java seems to fall into that "One Language Wonder" paradigm...when
you say web service people reach for their Java/J2EE references.

Java, because of its innate OO support, mainly, is certainly a very useful
language for Web Support and Web Services. BUT, it is NOT "the only game in
town", any more than COBOL is "the only game in town" when it comes to
commercial application development. (Although, personally, I prefer COBOL
for this).

As I mentioned elsewhere, these days it is the Business functionality that
should drive the design (before someone else tries to remind me that not all
computer programming is about Business, let me say that ALL of my comments
are geared towards a commercial Business environment), with the language
best suited for providing that functionality being used to create the
functional components. I have used COBOL to create ActiveX components and
deployed them on the Web without problem. They can be "glued" with ASP or
Java or even JavaScript.

I am currently looking at SOAP to provide the XML layer so that some of
these can be deployed remotely as Web Services. It is ongoing effort and I
haven't completed it yet, but the early indications are that it is quite via
ble to create Web Services this way.

They don't
view COBOL or PL/I, VB or anything else being viable in that arena. I was
under the impression that web services were the first step in abstracting
away from a language or implementation but it seems that isn't happening as
fast as I would have supposed.

This has to do with perception rather than reality. You are absolutely
correct that for many (most?) people when you mention "Web" they think
"Java". The reality is that, if you use a component based approach, the
source code of the components has no bearing on how they are deployed on the
Web, so they can be written in anything. Web Services will indeed abstract
away from a given language and .NET is a step in that direction.

It may just take a little while for the idea to become general...<G>.

Pete.

 

[Peter E.C. Dashwood]

LOL!

I enjoyed reading that...

I think "Nihil Software" was a bit of a giveaway... Maybe some of my posts
in the 90s inspired the author <G>.

I hasten to add that this is NOT what we were intending to do with Dulcinea.

Natural language interfaces are not SO hard to write (I wrote one for MS-DOS
that allowed people who didn't like the command line to communicate in
English.) It was distributed by a computer vendor in North Sydney as an
incentive to buy machines from him. He paid me $10 for every machine he sold
with it on...(It was called "IGOR" - Interactive Guide to On-line Running
<G>.) I did it because someone said it couldn't be done, and wasn't really
interested in it as a money maker.

He sold several hundred machines with it on, before Windows 3.1 came out and
blew it all away.... I received mail from people up to 2 years afterwards
saying how much they liked it. (If they asked IGOR about his life he would
give them my e-mail address, as well as an amusing tale of how he escaped
from Frankenstein's lab <G>)

The concept engine would have used a similar Natural Language simulation for
interaction with the User, but it would have no UNDERSTANDING of what the
language meant (apart from keywords which it would act upon).

Nowadays of course, there are some very good Natural Language interfaces and
they are quantum leaps beyond IGOR.

Don't let the fact that a magazine caught you with a hoax, persuade you that
such software will never be developed.

Thanks for posting it, John.

Pete.

 

[Paul Hsieh]

Paul:

I'm curious......can you provide me with a reference to the source of
the above comment?

Sure:

http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=160

Notice how many projects are in COBOL. Now look at the C, C++, Java
and Pascal numbers and go back to my original post.

The acid test, of course, is to compare against assembly language.
Its fair to say that assembly language isn't really a language at all
-- its just a bunch of macros for flipping 1's and 0's. You know a
language is dead or dying if people actually prefer assembly language
to using it.

Did you read that in a magazine article or was it a reference from a
Gartner Group study?

Nah, just 20 years as a professional programmer viewing the landscape,
knowing people who work in COBOL, watching the rise and fall of Pascal
(having used it and switching over to C just like everyone else), etc.

 

[Bat Guano]

Sure:

http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=160

Notice how many projects are in COBOL. Now look at the C, C++, Java
and Pascal numbers and go back to my original post.

ROFL. Are you suggesting Cobol used to score highly on that list?