Subj : Re: RIP Niklaus Wirth
To   : Blue White
From : Dr. What
Date : Wed Jan 10 2024 08:18:07

-=> Blue White wrote to tenser <=-

 BW> I worked in a shop that was trying to replace COBOL with Java.  They
 BW> found that, while Java did well at replacing "screen" programs, they
 BW> ran into difficulties when it came to some of the complex mathematics
 BW> and other heavy processing that happened during their nightly batch
 BW> processing.

Which is why those old languages are still out there.  FORTRAN, for example, is
still used and has been updated.  I think we're up to FORTRAN 90 now.

But other languages are trying to take over.  Julia is a good example here. 
It's very much like Python, but it's also very fast with a focus on math.  A
good potential replacement for FORTRAN.

At some point, these applications need to be rewritten.  Oh, now I will have
nightmares about the FORTRAN IV code that I worked on in 1984 that, even though
I converted it to VS FORTRAN at that time, is still running and hasn't been
rewritten into something more modern.

 BW> On the same machine, an IBM mainframe, the dusty COBOL code
 BW> outperformed what they were trying to replace it with.

But that's not a big surprise.

With Java, you compile to an interpreted byte code and run it in a JVM.

With COBOL, it gets compiled to machine instructions that have been optimized
up the wazoo over the last 40 years.

 BW> COBOL has put food on my table for roughly 27 years now.  I am glad I
 BW> learned it.

It did the same for me for about 10 years.  But I don't admit to remembering
how to code in it.


.... We're lost but we're making good time.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
 * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

.