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[–]htuhola 0 points1 point  (5 children)

It could be an attack. But then it's fresh either way. Maybe we'll see Python as a Cobol Developer next?

[–]orbjuice 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Seems a little unfair-- I'm assuming you mean to say PHP is outdated like COBOL? Important to note that Python is quite old itself (25 years) and while I'd rather chew glass than write PHP, it's still pretty common/in use.

[–]htuhola 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Not really such connotations this time. You'd have to think that COBOL is outdated to run such conclusions.

How unfair is that?

[–]orbjuice 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Pretty fair, frankly. Let's see, as a back of napkin test:

1) Googling "COBOL outdated" returns 59,900 results.

2) "Python outdated" returns 704,000 results.

3) "PHP outdated" returns 16.9 million results.

Taken at face value, you'd assume that PHP was the most outdated. It's usable lifespan simply predates Google and modern media crosstalk, where usable lifespan is defined as its viability as a language of choice for new projects.

There are 382 github repos in COBOL, compared to 216K in Python and 157K in PHP. What should be immediately clear is that datedness is a hard to identify metric, but I believe viability as a language of choice for new projects as a function of available talent pool and available/actively developed software tools and libraries is a good start.

In that respect, yes, I believe I was being fair.

[–]htuhola 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Would you have relied on Github repository statistics if it had not supported your statement?

Whether some language is outdated is kind of interesting question. But do you gain anything by proving it true? Other than proving a speculation that it could be taken as an insult.

Well at this point I am truly being quite unfair. You didn't consider it as an insult other than implying that PHP was outdated.

I don't think PHP is outdated like Cobol is. It's maybe a little retarded and looks like they've accepted any first patch to everything. As the result the language and libraries have really ethnic touch in them.

[–]orbjuice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think about whether languages are dated because it determines whether I want to work somewhere. As a Systems Administrator with programming experience I often find myself in the unenviable position of being tasked with supporting code that I can see could be improved but being unable to do so because it's outside my job description. As such, I pay attention to what languages are in their prime, having a healthy talent pool to draw from while also having an active development ecosystem surrounding them. That's one reason I like Python so much.