[Info-vax] Python 2 support ends 1-Jan-2020

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/4/2019 4:42 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 1/4/2019 2:20 PM, johnson.eric at gmail.com wrote:
>> Many of the python3 advocates continue to be surprised at
>> just how recalcitrant the python2 base is. I suspect
>> that's because those advocates are unfamiliar with the
>> pains of managing a large scale production facing code base
>> and the well placed fears that exist with deploying any
>> "big change".
> 
> Am I the only one who finds this humorous?
> 
> I also wonder why there are so many "newer" programming environments. 

> Sometimes I feel that every wanna-be language developer creates his own 
> language, just because he wants to, not because of any actual need.  If 
> that is really the case, then it's just chaos, with nothing anyone can 
> really count upon.
> 
> Too bad there language developers sometimes don't have a clue when it 
> comes to production environments, and the resistance to re-write 
> applications every 6 months or so.

Lots of new languages get invented.

It has become easy.

There are good tools to create lexers and parsers for the
front end.

Instead of struggling with creating your own optimizer you can just
target LLVM, JVM or CLR.

Or maybe just interpret. With the speed of computers today that
is acceptable for many purposes.

So everybody that thinks he/she has a good idea for a language can 
create one.

But only the languages that actually provide some progress become
widely adopted.

The rest just dies.

 > For something like java, the concept of a Java engine that once
 > implemented in any environment would then execute Java code appears to
 > be a good idea.  The reality might not live up to the goal.

It seems to work.

My guess is that >50% of all Java code is:
- written, build and unit tested on Windows
- tested and run in production on Linux

No problems.

Platform specific Java code is extremely rare.

> Some years ago I was informed that I could not be a serious programmer 
> if I didn't know PHP.  I asked the guy if he ever did any assembler 
> work, and got a blank look.  He had never heard of assembler programming.
> 
> I also wonder at times about the names.  If I wasn't prejudiced, I guess 
> I could also ask about Ada, Basic, Cobol, Fortran, Algol, and of course C.
> 
> :-)

:-)

Arne