An inventory of your toolbox

[Fairlight]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 10:36:18AM -0400, Jose Lerebours via Filepro-list
thus spoke:
> Ladies/Gents,
>
> While doing some reading, I came across a short video where a young
> programmer listed some of the dying programming languages going through
> 2020 and into 2021 based on trends, analytics of web usage and search
> popularity (a weird way to evaluate a programming language).
>
> The good news is that filePro was not listed as one of those  ;-)
>
> Here they are: Perl, Ruby, Objective C, VB and a couple others.
>
> The article kind of suggests to "not learn these languages" since they
> are not gaining new business or popularity; I like to think that they
> become "higher" paying languages because less and less young developers
> are learning them.

That is a piss-poor reason to not learn a language.  Ruby -is- actually
gaining in popularity, last I checked, and they're actually working on Ruby
3.  Perl is still being actively developed, and while it has fallen out of
favour, it more than gets the job done...usually faster than many others.
I've yet to find anything I cannot solve with Perl, short of developing
mobile apps.  I'm talking about Perl 5, not Perl 6, which may never be
done.  (I don't feel it was ever necessary, honestly.)

Also, Objective C is incredibly popular due to OSX/MacOS and iOS, despite
the existence of Swift.  I don't know where your source is getting their
ideas, but they're way off the mark.  VB is also still quite popular.

The reason filePro isn't on the list is because nobody's bloody heard of
it outside rarified circles in the last 27 years.

> This raises the question: Would you follow the trend of adopting new
> programming languages or stick to the ones you are most comfortable with
> and lour your customers into a topology that has already entered its
> final days/years?

The only two I'm interested in learning are Python (for multiple
reasons), and Ruby just so I can help other developers who chose that as
their language.  I can edit PHP, but don't write from whole cloth in
that.

Honestly, learning a new language has to be a paid activity nowadays.  If
it's not making me money, I don't want to spend time on it.  I have hobbies
that are actually still hobbies.  Computing is virtually dead to me as a
hobby; it's my career.  Occasionally, I get the urge to learn mobile app or
game development, and then I sleep on it and regain my sanity within a day.
I have neither the time nor energy for more work that isn't paid work.

> I know, filePro has been mentioned as a "dying" language (is is a language?)

It's an application with a bundled language and a storage layer.

> since late '90s and it has witnessed the death of others while it is
> still kicking.

dBase is still around.  So are some others, like FileMaker.  They've all
gone -FULL- GUI.

> While we cannot compare filePro to Python, PHP, JavaScript, C# or other
> popular languages out there has fpTech done too little too late for
> filePro to see another generation of developers carry it for the next 10+
> years?

I think the pool of filePro programmers is well under 300 at this point,
and shrinking with each retirement or death.  There is little I think
they could do to change the fact that the community size and market
share are both dwindling.

m->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.