Java Is Trash!

[Johann]

IIRC, US military also still uses COBOL for at least some of its systems. Civilian contractors may need COBOL familiarity in order to work with them. I think that there may be a few industries that still use COBOL, too, but less commonly. On the one hand, finding such a job can be near impossible. On the other hand, I hear they usually pay really well because nobody has that skill these days.

Cobol Programming was the first Community College course (and first programming course) I ever took. 1978 - I was 35. Oh yeah - Identification Div. then Enviroment, Data and Procedure. We used punchcards. If we had errors, we re-did parts of our own punchcard decks on our break - then tried again. 

Where I worked wasn't a Cobol shop - but there was a resurgence when it was used for Y2K work. I wasn't involved, so I never found out why the renewed need for Cobol. 

Speaking of languages, I've always liked Basic. (Pause for grimaces - I know,) There's a free product out called QB64. For Windows and Linux. You can compile and run vintage QBasic or Quickbasic code, on your modern machine and OS, or write new stuff using modern screen resolutions and large color sets that original MS QBasic or Quickbasic couldn't touch.

[MrPanda]

My father works with Cobol, he programs and trains in Cobol.

He is almost 80, he had already retired and stayed teaching physics at a university... but only 6 months after his retirement he was called back as a contractor to keep doing the exact same job.

It´s a Spanish bank and the programming is related to the ATMs. They use Cobol and DB2.

[davewill]

Surprised he mentioned HTML and CSS without talking about SQL.

Command prompts as a programming language would have been funny. What tier would that be?

He did include SQL and Bash scripting in the "Amazing" tier

[LevelUP]

According to Reuters, there are

• 220 billion lines of COBOL in use today
  
• 43% of banking systems are built on COBOL
  
• 95% of ATM swipes rely on COBOL code
  

Lots of state and federal government systems still run on COBOL.

As older programmers retire, there will need to be new programmers to replace them.

One strategy for getting hired as a programmer is finding a niche to specialize in. 

The coding bootcamps saw a niche in specializing in Javascript frameworks, which most colleges don't teach. So those coding bootcamp students could compete for jobs with the Computer Science major super nerds from the Ivey league colleges because they had skills the college grads didn't have.

[Eliablive]

What I don't understand is his lack of acceptance of PhP given that tons of sites, plugins, and so on are written in it. Plus the inclusion of HTML and CSS is also quite controversial. I also didn't see React but only JS which is also weird for me considering the popularity of this language now.

[davewill]

Speaking of languages, I've always liked Basic. (Pause for grimaces - I know,) There's a free product out called QB64. For Windows and Linux. You can compile and run vintage QBasic or Quickbasic code, on your modern machine and OS, or write new stuff using modern screen resolutions and large color sets that original MS QBasic or Quickbasic couldn't touch.

I always liked it, too. Not because it's great to code in, it isn't. I like it because I think that it does a good job of giving a novice a glimpse of how the computer REALLY does things under the hood. All of the structured and object-oriented paradigms are great, and are really needed to be an efficient developer, but the whole line number/goto/gosub paradigm mimics how assembly and machine code, in other words the actual CPU, works. The immediate response of the interpreter is also stimulating to a beginner who just wants the computer to "do something".

I've tried to tutor my kids through Python, and they always had a hard time visualizing the flow of execution. Something that doesn't happen in BASIC.

Of course, once they've written a handful of simple programs, they should move on to Python or something much more modern before any bad habits become ingrained.

[jack125dc]

Speaking of languages, I've always liked Basic. (Pause for grimaces - I know,) There's a free product out called QB64. For Windows and Linux. You can compile and run vintage QBasic or Quickbasic code, on your modern machine and OS, or write new stuff using modern screen resolutions and large color sets that original MS QBasic or Quickbasic couldn't touch.

I always liked it, too. Not because it's great to code in, it isn't. I like it because I think that it does a good job of giving a novice a glimpse of how the computer REALLY does things under the hood. All of the structured and object-oriented paradigms are great, and are really needed to be an efficient developer, but the whole line number/goto/gosub paradigm mimics how assembly and machine code, in other words the actual CPU, works. The immediate response of the interpreter is also stimulating to a beginner who just wants the computer to "do something".

I've tried to tutor my kids through Python, and they always had a hard time visualizing the flow of execution. Something that doesn't happen in BASIC.

Of course, once they've written a handful of simple programs, they should move on to Python or something much more modern before any bad habits become ingrained.

I agree that Basic is a great starting language for beginners because of its simplicity and how it mimics how assembly and machine code works. QB64 is a great tool for running vintage Basic code on modern machines and also allows for modern screen resolutions and color sets.

[Johann]

Command prompts as a programming language would have been funny. What tier would that be?

 In the old days with DOS and even with Windows - we had this exact thing. Batch files and batch programming. There were even compilers for them.I'd figure this would still be around, especially with the expanded command set of today's Windows. But I divorced Windows years ago, for a happy life with Linux.
In modern terminology, I think maybe this would come under the heading of "Scripting" - as in "Scriptkiddies" - junior hackers who can't program their own hacking routines so they use scripts written by others. But I'm 80 - what do I know about hacking? 

[sanantone]

I don't know how accurate he is because I've only tried a few languages, but he's funny.

[AwardTour]

Speaking of languages, I've always liked Basic. (Pause for grimaces - I know,) There's a free product out called QB64. For Windows and Linux. You can compile and run vintage QBasic or Quickbasic code, on your modern machine and OS, or write new stuff using modern screen resolutions and large color sets that original MS QBasic or Quickbasic couldn't touch.

Lol, nothing wrong with Basic. It still lives on through VBA. Back in the 90s and early 2000s VisualBasic 6 was used for a lot of windows apps before .Net came around. During Y2K I actually tried to help a few local factories with their old GW-Basic programs that were not Y2K compliant. Have you tried FreeBASIC? I tried doing game dev in QBasic back in the day. Things were so slow back then that it forced everyone to learn assembly language if you wanted to do graphics or anything cool. There were no APIs and interrupts were too slow. Everything was direct memory access (video ram, sound card, keyboard, etc)

I never could get into Java. A lot of the people who were into Pascal/Delphi went over to Java. The jvm was slow as heck back then. Somehow, corporate America really got into Java because of Sun Micro Systems. I'd learn Java if I had to for job reasons.