Subj : Re: year 11 maths survey
To   : comp.programming
From : Jon Harrop
Date : Sun Sep 11 2005 02:05 pm

Richard Heathfield wrote:
> I would. A well-written C++ program which takes advantage of common C++
> idioms is effectively unreadable to anyone who knows C but not C++.

Yes.

>> C programmers can use C++ compilers.
> 
> Sure, if they want to write C++.

Or if they want to write C. I often compile C using a C++ compiler without
any trouble.

> COBOL programmers can do the same. But, 
> whilst it is true that some of my C programs will compile under a C++
> compiler, many do not. And a few that do compile will have different
> semantics under C++ than they do under C.

Then you're probably overusing trigraphs! ;-)

>> OCaml, SML, Haskell, Mathematica, F#. I thought APL was an old language?
> 
> Yes, APL is old, but I didn't think I could reasonably claim that it has
> few followers! (Had I done so, I'd probably be dead by now.)

Burned to death?

>> I'd appreciate it if the OP published the results. I'd like to know what
>> languages other people are using. :-)
> 
> At best, you'd find out what languages comp.programming people claim to
> use when filling in an online survey posted by a schoolboy.

Sure.

> I do not wish 
> to cast aspersions on the honesty of my fellow comp.programmers, but I
> suspect the temptation to add languages we haven't used for many years may
> prove too great for some of us to resist! :-)

That's true. I'm more interested in knowing what people are programming in
today.

> (Before I decided not to post my survey answers after all, I realised I'd
> added EXEC to my "programming languages" reply - and I haven't written a
> line of EXEC since about 1984.)

I was programming a beeb then (6502 assembler and BBC BASIC), IIRC. Later an
Archimedes (ARM assembler, BBC BASIC and Norcroft C). I wish todays
computers were so easy to start hacking with...

Many years later, I programmed in a language called UFI whilst working for
BP. I wonder if anyone else ever heard of UFI (a cross between C and BASIC
that was meant for real-time analysis but had an unreliable time()
function)? :-)

Oh, and I forgot Mathematica...

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com

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