On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 01:56:58PM -0500, Steve Cayford wrote: > Jeremy wrote: > >> There is no language that is "uber alles". The domain of the problem > >> you're solving often points to the languages you might consider. > > > > Yes indeed. Each has pros/cons. > > > > Don't forget COBOL. I guess that would be the domain of legacy banking > systems. Good point: All languages have drawbacks, but this does not mean that all languages have benefits. My COBOL story: Back in the early-to-mid 90s, I was assigned to help a cow-orker with a project to translate a client's application out of COBOL. Into Visual Basic. And the client wanted to do it in two stages. Stage 1 (which was in progress) was to create a VB app that exactly duplicated the look, feel, and behavior of the existiing COBOL. One gigantic form with a zillion textboxes and no event handlers on any of them, just a mile-long handler to run when the user pressed 'enter' that did everything and then cleared the form. I don't recall whether stage 1 was ever completed, but stage 2 (re-rewriting into something that actually looked and behaved like a modern desktop application) never happened. -- Dave Sherohman