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Jeremy D. Miller -- The Shade Tree Developer

Under the hood and working with .Net, TDD, Software Design, and Agile Stuff

Funny quotes about old programming languages

If you are a COBOL guy, doen't get too upset because it all comes around.  If you really want to see a language put down, read what the Ruby community or functional programming gurus say about Java (and C# by inference). 

http://www.sysprog.net/quotcob.html

For the record, I have coded in Fortran 77 (badly) and worked in a shop mostly dominated by COBOL.  I don't have anything against COBOL per se, but I think the early versions discouraged the usage of subroutines due to inefficiency set back programming a bit.  I jokingly called someone a "COBOL programmer" just yesterday for a big, big chunk of Java code unpolluted by fluff like other classes and extraneous methods (behind his back, but don't feel sorry for him, he makes much more than you or I.  Non-coding architect having fun learning to code again).  One use case, one method, start to finish with no wussy subroutines baby! 

Many people say that Ruby is like a developer magnifier that allows good developers to be faster and bad developers to fail faster.  That might be so, but to me, Fortran 77 was more like an equalizer.  Everybody is humbled before the "unknown error at line 0" compiler message.

My favorites:

    •  A computer without COBOL and FORTRAN is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup or mustard. (John Krueger)
    • The tree large enough that a stake capable of killing COBOL could be fashioned from its trunk has not yet grown anywhere upon the face of this verdant planet. (Dan Martinez)
    • Cobol has almost no fervent enthusiasts. As a programming tool, it has roughly the sex appeal of a wrench. (Charles Petzold)

Same site, other pages

    • Lisp has all the visual appeal of oatmeal with fingernail clippings mixed in. (((Larry Wall)))

    • If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. (Robert Sewell)

    • Using Java for serious jobs is like trying to take the skin off a rice pudding wearing boxing gloves. (Tel Hudson)

    • Perl: The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption. (Keith Bostic)

 



Comments

cmyers said:

"As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later. Long live FORTRAN!"

It seems that Mort (using the official Microsoft definition) is not a new phenomenon in the Microsoft world :)

# November 7, 2007 8:47 AM

Worm said:

This was in the fortune list where I once worked

                                                 "COBOL is the best of the worst, die Fortran die."

Code wars did not start in the naughties, nineties or eighties

# November 8, 2007 4:32 PM

Spec#, a safe ride in fast Ruby world « Sheep Beyond the Fence said:

Pingback from  Spec#, a safe ride in fast Ruby world « Sheep Beyond the Fence

# May 11, 2008 2:41 AM

REarl said:

Hey, I used to be a steel industry COBOL programmer.  And I'm still a COBOL programmer, but now for a different industry.  My headstone will probably be written in COBOL.  

# June 13, 2008 12:30 AM

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About Jeremy D. Miller

Jeremy began his IT career writing "Shadow IT" applications to automate his engineering documentation, then wandered into software development because it looked like more fun. Jeremy previously worked as a systems architect building mission critical supply chain software for a Fortune 100 company and learned agile development practices as a .Net consultant at ThoughtWorks, one of the pioneers of agile development. Jeremy is the author of the open source StructureMap (http://structuremap.sourceforge.net) tool for Dependency Injection with .Net and the forthcoming StoryTeller (http://storyteller.tigris.org) tool for supercharged FIT testing in .Net. Jeremy's thoughts on just about everything software related can be found on his weblog "The Shade Tree Developer" at http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller, part of the popular CodeBetter site. Jeremy is a Microsoft MVP for C#. Check out Devlicio.us!

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