Worst Language Ever?

[GregTomkins]

I thought you guys might be amused by this. P4GL is mentioned a little more than halfway down the post, with 10 upvotes.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...rst-programming-language-you-ever-worked-with

Stack Overflow is (IMO) totally awesome and amazingly useful, notwithstanding their apparent ignorance of our favorite language!

 

[TomBascom]

Too bad that answer is so crappy. Nothing much can be done about it though due to the catch-22 of needing reputation to make any edits and improve the answer

 

[tamhas]

I only wish that it were possible to add a comment since basing a judgment on V7, i.e., early 90s is way out of line for a language that has evolved as much as ABL has. Everything noted is either
1) massively out of date;
2) just a question of bad programming practice; or
3) actually an advantage which he simply didn't understand well enough to use or control.

 

[Casper]

Exactly what I thought reading this. But didn;t had 50 reputation points to do so...

Casper.

 

[KnutHandsome]

I read it and wanted to pull it apart, it's so ignorant, obnoxious and pathetically playing-to-the-crowd.

Unfortunately, just as I did with Joel, I forgot my StackOverflow password (I seem to be jinxed with that family of sites) and can't be bothered creating a new login and building up enough rep points from zero to respond. Life's too short.

It is already one of the best developer's sites out there; I read it every day - but ill-informed answers like that demonstrate it is not flawless, I think.

Fanboy/hateboy, two sides of the same sheep.

 

[GregTomkins]

The most infuriating part was his not realizing how awesome the "automatically created database variables" feature is (he considers it a flaw). Whenever I do Java or C#, it is this aspect of those languages that drives me insane (vs. P4GL). Most other things I have to admit I like better (in C#), the other gigantically awesome thing about P4GL being... temp-tables.

Anyway, it's too bad that that was exposed to tens of thousands of Stack Overflow users, who if they remember P4GL at all, will do so negatively.

 

[KnutHandsome]

Anyway, it's too bad that that was exposed to tens of thousands of Stack Overflow users, who if they remember P4GL at all, will do so negatively.

Yes - and there are also a couple of other negative references elsewhere on the site, and its sister site serverfault (none as 'authoritative' as that, though).

They are normally accompanied by wrong or misleading answers which indicate a lack of understanding and inability to think outside the normal SQL based framework.

A devil's advocate might suggest the unchallenged negative references are there because Progress really is lame and legacy, but I suspect it is because most people on the site are in a mainstream framework (as that is what it generally caters for, in effect, if not in purpose), and any knowledge of Progress is from a fleeting interaction with it, rather than an understanding immersion.

 

[TomBascom]

I've identified every progress, progress-4gl and openedge tagged question on both sites and I'm trying to build up enough "reputation" to correct stuff that needs correcting. Feel free to find my posts and vote for them

 

[GregTomkins]

We should create a bunch of fake accounts and flood SO with questions like "I want to get rid of this crappy SQL Server thing and convert my data to the awesome Progress database". BTW, it is a little f***** up that this forum (ProgressTalk) almost always has Google ads for Golden Code at the top of it. That company/product seems to exist solely to get people away from Progress, those rascals!

 

[tamhas]

Well, if your company is based on OS/2, you have to figure out something new to do! FWIW, there are now three companies providing ABL to Java or C# translation. Golden Code *still* doesn't have their first customer in production. A second has a customer that has accepted the result, but isn't actually in production since they are waiting for a new site. The third is working on three projects, but two are very early stage and the third has only done the UI, not any of the BL. So, far from a slam dunk and pretty expensive, so you have to really want it badly.

 

[tamhas]

Just got this in a message in my in box:

Discussing the dubious stats on “rival computer-language preferences,” Bjarne [Stroustrup] says:

Most of the popular measures basically measure noise and ought to report their findings in decibel rather than "popularity."

 

[cugar]

in fact - none of the available languages ist the worst ever - it's just a matter of using it in the right way as well as for the right purpose....

 

[Cringer]

I love writing Progress. Am I alone?

 

[sdjensen]

Nope you are not alone. I also love the freedom that Progress gives you however not all my collegues agrees with me

 

[TomBascom]

Those poor saps who have invested time and energy into C++, Java, C#, VB, SQL and so forth have to justify their mistake...

Those of us who have seen the light and embraced the Progress 4GL have no such need

 

[FrancoisL]

Progress is a nice language but the licensing is horrible and very costly.

It a pain to explain to a customer that going from 49 to 50+ users will cost him more then 20k.

The arguments between my boss and the progress sales rep can be fun to watch tho especially when the vendor tries to explain to him the difference between Machine / Client / Access Agent and the different App Server products. My boss tells him to stop shoving BS down his throat lol .

 

[GregTomkins]

I don't think P4GL overall is a particularly nice language; it is verbose, loaded with inconsistencies, lags years behind its competitors in many ways, and is costly. Likewise the database.

However, these are minor quibbles compared to the ease with which the language integrates with the database. Business apps are 95% about churning through records. Progress is way better at that than Java+SQL, or whatever.

The 99% of the world that doesn't use P4GL, spend their lives setting up database schemas, redefining the whole thing again in an object model, writing endless boilerplate to translate between the two, THEN finally start writing business logic... it boggles the mind.

 

[tamhas]

Difficulty in making these explanations is not understanding the value proposition. You don't sell the customer on a handful of new user licenses, you sell then on the fact that they have grown up in their needs to require the higher end product. Once you educate them about the advantages of Enterprise over Workgroup at their current user levels, then the increment of a couple of users is no longer a big issue.

 

[KnutHandsome]

(with apologies to the original author)

 

[Casper]

lol

C