[Sussex] RE: The 'D' programming language and onwards

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff/John

On 20 February 2003 at 14:24 Geoff Teale wrote:
> John C. wrote:
> > Oh maybe thats the point, we have to have something new to learn in 
> > the programming world.
> 
> I think that:
> 
> 0\ we (that is we with a genuine love of programming) do 
> _desire_ to be in a state of learning at all times.
> 
> 1\ if new languages didn't come along we'd still be entering 
> programs with switches.  People who say that a language can't take off 
> because there are good existing languages are ignoring the lessons of
> the past.

I only think that this is part of it.  perl (and python for that matter)
is combines the advantages of shell programming with the power of grep/
sed/awk and other Unix utilities.  But I haven't found anything in there
that I can't do another way so I've never bothered learned it's syntax.
C++ gave me a object abstraction so I found the time.  Java have me 
platform independence so I found the time.  Providing something new 
has to be factored into your two arguments as well.

> > I think this is a conspiracy theory so that companies can advertise
> > positions for 'must have 6 months experience of new programming language
> > that has been released today'
> 
> I think that is an aspect of nearly everyone involved in IT recruitment
(IT
> managers, HR staff and recruitment consultants) not knowing the first
thing
> about IT.

Occam's Razor: There are those in management and HR that have no brain .

Steve