this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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Programming

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Cobol Has Been "Dead" For So Long, My Grandpa Wrote About It (wumpus-cave.net)
submitted 1 month ago by frezik@midwest.social to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 month ago (5 children)

It naturally contains some of the buzzwords of the time, such as fourth-generation programming language (4GL). If you’re not familiar with that term, suffice it to say that the Wikipedia page lists several examples, and Cobol has outlasted most of them.

Lots of 3GL outlived most 4GL languages, C, C++, C# Java, Ruby, Python, and even newer languages like Rust and Go are 3GL. In fact so did plenty of 2GL (assembly languages).

Programming language generations are about usage and level of abstraction not about being obsolete.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago

And COBOL is listed as third-generation on Wikipedia, too.

I now remember reading about this concept of generations in a book about Ada, it seemed fascinating then but turned out to not be as good as expected 🥲

Also, Unix Shell is listed as 4GL example. There are SPSS, MATLAB, R, and Wolphram Alpha in the same list of examples, that kind of shows where 4GL went today.

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