[plug] [link] Programming languages - and their faults

[Craig Ringer]

> i am contiually annoyed by people claiming something that they dont
> understand sucks. it doesnt suck, you just dont know it well enoutgh. i
> mean people say that cobol sucks. well it does the job, and business
> have used it for a long time and it works for them. so what if it's old
> and you could do the same in one of those new fangled languages. 

That's fair, and I do admit that my understanding of lower-level 
languages (C, etc) is poor and has decayed severly with time.

On the other hand, people who don't have the time to spend 5 years 
learning to code to the standards of people like the OpenBSD team still 
need to get results out. That's what "smart" languages are there for - 
there may be performance costs etc, but it lets you get something done 
quicker, with less learning time, that does the job just as well.

Nothing can really stop bad programmers, or good programmers who make 
occasional bad mistakes. However, there's no reason the language can't 
help them out...

Craig