Re: About VS C++


"Dave Nottage [TeamB]" <rot13.qnivqa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:458f2f09@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Eric Grange wrote:

In the .Net world, using something other than a standard .Net
language (C#, C++ & VB) is quite a liability in terms of long term
maintainance

Exactly the same was said about C++ and VB for Windows development
(Win16 or Win32), and using the same argument. Still makes me laugh,
even 11 years later.

I think a lot of people make this mistake because they confuse the ease of
finding resumes with the ease of finding good programmers. You might be able
to find twenty zillion resumes from people professing C# skills (or whatever
the latest fad is) but how many of them are actually good programmers? I
have seen some cases where companies that had great programmers threw them
out for crappy programmers simply on the basis of "skills", not ability.
Then they wonder why their new software is so bad. A guy who has been doing
great software for fifteen years gets overlooked by the bimbos in HR because
his resume doesn't have the requisite buzzwords, meanwhile a newbie that
played with the latest language for about a year or two gets the nod. Syntax
drives something like 95% of the job placement even though it really only
represents about 5% of the software development process.

I don't think this will ever change. Most companies will continue to think
syntax is the key to the long term success of software development, rather
than ability. If they choose the most popular syntax, then how can they go
wrong? It's the argument by numbers. We've all heard this many time over in
other contexts. "How can two billion people be wrong?"

This is a problem that products like Delphi will always face. But it is not
a killer. A product can be quite profitable, and useful to consumers, even
though it does not dominate the market. If it was any other way, every
market would be a monopoly, and capitalism would be a failure. As long as
there are enough consumers, and suppliers, that buck the trend, that defy
the herd, there is profit in deviation from the norm. I'm hoping that
CodeGear heeds this fact.



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Wild speculations about the "other" factors
    ... and no single language exposes all of them or ever will. ... while 99 % of the software dev community has gone West. ... Meanwhile the angst of over .NET syntax will only to apply to a tiny subset ... most Delphi programmers already have a mountain of code that they're going ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • IDEs, syntactic vs. semantic highlighting, etc. (was Re: What is your favourite IDE? Eclipse DLTK!)
    ... ability to move from basic syntax highlighting of code to something more like ... While syntax highlighting is nice, ... I think we're starting to get into language design and language processor implementation issues here, and I'm all in favor of debating that. ... And how many programmers *really* program on a "team of one?" ...
    (comp.lang.ruby)
  • Re: Language to replace C
    ... I notice that you have abandoned a lot of C's syntax. ... I've been pondering language design issues for some ... new programmers that have never seen the language before. ... instead of char* argv, ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: New bytecode assembly language to play with
    ... learn the language very quickly, and can even guess at syntax without ... When I said "syntax isn't important" I didn't mean "syntax isn't ... one that introduces new functionality, i.e. it's not just another way ... pick a syntax that a large proportion of programmers are ...
    (comp.lang.misc)
  • Re: CollabRx seeks brilliant engineers for an excellent e-science adventure
    ... belief that lisp programmers are smarter/better. ... Java or PHP programmers. ... a type of language that attracts a personality that meets my perceptions ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)