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Does Company-Wide Language "Standardization" Work?
RMX asks: "In our company, we're currently going through the debate of standardizing on a computer language for our next set of products. The pro-standardization guys say that a single language (like Java) will save everyone time. The anti-standardization guys are advocating a mixed environment (of languages like Python, Ruby, and C#), and argue that the whole discussion is as silly as a manufacturing firm standardizing on screwdrivers for all their screw/nail/glue fastening needs. Have any of your companies standardized on a language? How well did it go?"
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but then we weren't allowed to use SQL or XML anymore!!
Problems and needs are naturally occurring things.
They take on unforeseen forms with non-standard characteristics.
Are you talking about the "known unknowns" and the "unknown unknowns" ????
But that group is so 70's. Though I have to admit that I dig "Take a Chance on Me" and "Dancing Queen".
Table-ized A.I.
A few years ago the company I worked for was pretty much all PHP with a couple of projects in perl. I ended up taking over a project and redoing it in C. The downside of that was that when my boss saw that my C based app outdid the perl code it was supposed to replace and could be used to replace some of the PHP as well he started to want to standardize on it.
I've never been quite as nervous as when I was asked if I could redo the websites in C.
Thankfully we talked him out of it and he came to his senses.
It might seem a little primitive having to do a whole heap of pen up, pen down, move, and rotate commands to draw a dialog box, but imagine how impressed future employers will be when they see on your resume that you developed an enterprise scale distributed system with it.
I've seen COBOL written in Pascal. The horror, the horror...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Like anything else, the answer's "be sensible" - play to your strengths. If your company uses the "infinite monkeys" model, then standardize on Java.
In general: an adequate coder can handle Java and bodge C++. A good coder can pick up and use any ordinary language in a week or less, and be fluent and experienced within six months. A guru can handle the oddballs, like lisp and haskell, and make them dance.
Do not expose code monkeys to haskell. You'll pop their fuses, leading to expensive lawsuits, etc.
If you can get yourself on the "Standardization Committee", you can probably even have REAL fun! Like -- ask stupid questions: how does the language express factorial 10,000? Can I see some sample code? How about implementation of Knuth's Algorithm for sorting tape runs (whatever). How about dynamic programming? Backtracking? Functional programming? OOP support? Report generation from databases. GUI interfacing? Multi-threading?
You get the drift. I am sure that you could generate at least 1,000 pages of samples, criteria, &etc.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Rock.
Next question?
Your company should standardize around Hindi - the new programming language in India - It is an extremely natural language - you write down your requirements in English (even on paper), send it via e-mail / snail mail to a supercomputer called "India", the "India" machine turns it into Hindi and feeds the information to a cluster of other India machines, known as "Indians" and then these "Indians" break it down into functions, write the code, put it back together, compile and send you the binary - you wont have to worry about what language they code it in!
--------- I have no signature
I forget - does Fortran 66 still have the neato three-way conditional goto?
For backward compatability, I think it still has it. It was something like:
if x - y (100, 200, 300)
Which IIRC would traslate to something like:
If (x - y) > 0 then goto 300
If (x - y) = 0 then goto 200
If (x - y) < 0 then goto 100
It must have been invented by an octopus. Funky Fifties.
Table-ized A.I.
We need a new moderation option: (Score:5, Pwned)
Obligatory Simpsons quote:
Lisa's brain: Poor predictable Bart. Always takes `rock'.
Bart's brain: Good ol' rock. Nuthin' beats that!
Bart: Rock!
Lisa: Paper.
Bart: D'oh!
As Python, Ruby, Lua are all the same and closely related to Java
Shh! I am getting near my target... the greatest of all game, the beast I have hunted all my adult life... the Complete and Total Idiot!
Many times in the past I thought I had found him -- but now, now I am sure. Mere ignorance alone _cannot_ explain the statement above! The most awe-inspiring thing is the inclusion of Lua, which is so utterly unlike both Python and Ruby in one way and Java in another way! Without the Lua, it would just be factually wrong, and a bit stooopid. Adding Lua, though -- that takes it to a whole nuther level!
Python, Ruby and Lua. All the same. And all closely related to Java.
Magnificent.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
English.
As a programmer, I can assure you that this is patently untrue.
This reminds me of a guy I worked with couple of years ago. He was a research scientist for a large technology company. The only programming language he knew was LISP. For some reason I don't remember, he was eventually told that he had to begin writing his projects in Java. So he learned just enough to write a LISP interpreter in Java -- and then continued to write all his projects in LISP.
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