babel (babble)

 Fortran, Cobol

If you've never heard the words before, they're program blasts from the past.

But more interesting, to me, is how languages devolve, get deprecated, once the bosses retire and the new guys take over.

I don't know exactly why languages morph, but I'll bet politics and old age are factors.

No one mentions "Assembly" anymore, 

(yada)

(Insert links)

The essential 10 programming languages developers need to know this year - TechRepublic

Introduction - Learn | Microsoft Docs ("Python", an Introduction)

I have not found an article saying "The reason we dumped (whatever) is because"

So let me surmise the shit outta the rest of this:

Compilers can be so much more sophisticated now, and can lean towards the preferences of a new generation of programmers.

Plus it's more profitable to make a new language rather than license and tweak an old one.

(But if they did endlessly tweak, revise and improve, isn't that better than reinvention? I guess it depends upon who you talk to.)

How do you know your preferred language won't die, blow away, become dust, in the near future?

You've paid to study, bought equipment, it's time for your job or your promotion, and they'll ask pointed questions like, "You DO know yada-whatever 2.0, don't you?"

Losing at that first interview, you either go out on your own, seat-of-your-pants learning, if you're incredibly lucky enough to be talented that way, or give up and become a cook.

And if you do get a job, will it be plotting the course of missions to mars, or will you be a minion for a fictional game no one buys, so you're partially blamed and lose your position?

"Ten Languages", but really only one, for years, "C," and its aliases (C++ etc)

Python is based on something I have not read up on yet, and one or two of my games use python.

It's a biggie step from "hello world" to modifying a game, 

and the people who teach this stuff usually write as if you already knew it, and enforce higher-math skills, but My boundless curiosity still makes me want to learn python-lines like "Where is the bathroom?",

"Please," "Thank you," ,"Shutdown-restart"

"It's a lot like BASIC," I thought I heard a voice say.

Well, you made my point, sort of, why not just tweak BASIC, not reinvent talking?

I'm seriously of the opinion that all the paintshops and all the whatchacall compilers won't make me as good an artist as the guy on PBS or a game programmer for TIC-TAC-TOE (nevermind "Wumpus");

(A zillion blog entries won't turn me into Poe or Hemmingway)

Related (I swear):

You could buy makeup til there's a shortage, you won't look as good

your friend who became a doctor in physics won't discover a damned thing, but SOME people seem to rattle off accomplishments as easily as you or I might make a baloney sandwich.

Bored genius needed something to do over Christmas, uh, modified an existing hobby-language (well, here, dammit, you read it)

There ya go, Genius reinvents something as a hobby, in a week.

so...what have YOU done lately??

It sucks being common. I'm not even decent-mask-worthy.

If only those guys on forums, expounding upon the vicissitudes of fictional trivia, could steer their great intellect towards something like the above (in a week?)

I tend to repeat myself but just in case it was unclear,

My superficially knowing a language, any language, won't turn me into a decent programmer, and the multitude of languages (I never answered that one) can make or break a guy's career, but some can be forgiven for having so much brain-power that it leaks out into a hobbyist's language that became a mighty force in programming...but I'd still rather he changed libraries of *existing* languages instead.

Like, uh, he did with "Unix" (I think)

----

Blather and Notes to follow:

I can:

assign variables, make minor evaluations, run small "for"-loops (repeat stuff several times)

But nothing of much use.

Well, wait, I could maybe paste a count-down timer, that would only take several hours of research to make:

3

2

1

yay! (or some such)

all on a single line? 

I haven't really discovered how to execute batch-files (not that I'd really want to),

unless it turned my command-prompt a bright color, or something.

Ya know what, it's getting late...I'll revisit this topic in ten or so years...