Indeed, starting to commit or do someone a favor "quickly" can quickly ruin a day or even a weekend. It can even lead to additional work for the next few working days.
Thank you for your response. I was curious to know whether COBOL (and all the other languages from that era) still had real professional value worth seriously exploring. I’ve often been interested in older languages for learning purposes, but I actually rushed through APL too quickly. I had looked at some source code and initially thought it was an exotic programming language because of the many special characters I saw. But I was wrong—this language is quite well-designed and powerful. I'll take a closer look at it; it also seems interesting.
In the past, it was possible to create truly innovative languages, but that is very rarely the case now. We are constantly bound by industrial standards, from syntax to functionality.
Thank you for your response. After reading all these replies, I clearly understood that COBOL is not as accessible as it might seem from a (very) distant professional perspective. I was just curious to learn more. However, these posts mention quite a lot that it is still a good language to learn.
Thank you for your response. Actually, I don't really intend to pursue a professional career in COBOL; it was more of an excuse to learn a new, rather old language that interested me, just like many other programming languages I’d like to explore. However, it was still interesting to know what would await me if one day, on a whim, I developed a deep passion for this particular language. COBOL is still a part of computing history, and it’s only fair to draw knowledge from it.
What could anybody have against learning something new. Follow your hearth and go build something! I've heard of someone implementing tetris in labview, which is completely against its purpose and was loved by everyone who saw it.
Thank you for getting involved in this great advice. I knew I wasn’t actually going to pursue a professional career in COBOL; in fact, it was just a way to justify my learning of this language and even other languages from the same era. I'm trying to immerse myself in the mindset of programmers from that time, in addition to everything modern today. I have a certain fascination for old things that have been abandoned—it’s often a legacy that shouldn’t be ignored, especially if it took a long time to develop or if it has matured significantly. It would be quite narrow-minded not to take an interest in what was done in the past to satisfy one's thirst for learning. But COBOL itself would really be my last option if I had to look for a job, though it’s still worth paying attention to its market demand. Fortunately, there are many other jobs in programming.
Thank you again for contributing to my growth in both computing and professionalism—I’m still far from reaching the end of my learning journey.
In the end, I was right to make this post.
I've been interested in Lisp before, but Clojure seems to be a more widely used and active version. I'd have to learn it again; the syntax is quite interesting.
> Clojure seems to be a more widely used and active version
This is a pretty gross oversimplification and it's also a mischaracterization to say it's "a more widely used and active version". I wouldn't even put it in the same catagory as traditional lisps since those will compile down to executables and clojure run in the JVM
> I wouldn't even put it in the same catagory as traditional lisps since those will compile down to executables and clojure run in the JVM
They "kind of" do. `:executable t` does not actually make an executable in the way most people understand it. It's a big blob with lots of stuff you would expect to be stripped out in other languages. Short of paying several grand for Lispworks, you are not going to make true executables in something like SBCL.
In contrast, Clojure with GraalVM is fairly easy to do and will give you smaller binaries.
My goal is to create micro SaaS with unique functionality under the name of my organization and following its niche, i.e. web and software development. So our paid software will surely allow cloud/AI services or even project organization for freelancer/startup.
2. Be able to answer “why you” if your market is too generic you likely don’t have a strong story here. Why is this the most important thing to build right now for your customers and why are you uniquely suited to building it?
Your observations are relevant. It's clear that the valuation of software engineering varies between companies, which can be frustrating for enthusiasts of the field. As for the education system, it does not seem to provide adequate preparation for the practical and commercial aspects of the profession.
